


Comes Back to Haunt

by mutantleech



Series: Recovery [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But this time it's not Sherlock ok, Case Fic, Gang Rape, Happy Ending, I fucking hate her, Kidnapping, M/M, No wank or bashing of her though, Panic Attacks, Permanent Injury, Protective John, Sally Donovan is a bitch, Serial Killers, This one is not as graphic as the prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 17:56:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutantleech/pseuds/mutantleech
Summary: Lestrade comes to Sherlock with a case that will challenge his newfound recovery. John tries to keep the detective from falling apart, and Sherlock insists that there's something more to this case than everyone thinks.The ghost of Serbia lurks at his heels, and he has to come to terms with what his trauma might mean for his future as a detective.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You might want to read What Happened in Serbia first.  
> This could be read as a stand-alone, as long as you know that the previous fic was Sherlock recovering after being raped in captivity for 3 months in Serbia.
> 
> This sequel started out because I was rewatching the series for research purposes and I was reminded how much of a @##$%@ Sally Donovan is. So I wanted a scene where someone would tell her where to shove it.  
> But then it just escalated into a full blown sequel, so there you have it.  
> No real bashing of her character, though.
> 
> I almost finished this story right after What Happened in Serbia, but when S4 came out it destroyed me and I couldn't look at this fandom for months. I still have my Mystrade fic in the works, so stick around for that!

When his phone buzzed he was drinking his morning coffee and carefully scanning his emails. Surely there had to be something here above a six? Above a five? He was on the verge of taking a four at this point, honestly.

He almost jumped in anticipation at getting a text. Only three people ever texted him: one was currently doing the dishes a few meters away and the other two usually only texted about cases.

He looked at his phone hoping there had been some gruesome murder in the upper ranks that needed to be _discreetly seen to_ or linked homicides with the promise of a serial killer, oh please-

 _Woman dead. Gang rape. Second corpse found in the Thames. -_ GL

His heart skipped a beat and he felt his throat closing up at reading it.

His eyes scanned the message again and it was simply impossible to stop the automatic memories that came upon reading that word. Flashes of his time in Serbia always crept up at the most inconvenient times, but granted this one was entirely justified.

"Who was that?" John asked conversationally from the kitchen.

Sherlock's head snapped up, but he schooled his expression into one of disinterest and looked down at his laptop as though resuming his scanning. "Lestrade" he said truthfully "Some boring case even a third grader could figure out." Ok, so maybe not entirely truthfully.

"Oh?" the doctor was coming over with his own cup of tea now, and he sat down on his chair before nodding towards the laptop. "Any luck with the emails?"

Sherlock sighed dramatically "None whatsoever. What does a man have to do to get a decent murder around here!" he shouted as though the universe would hear him. And, well, the frustration was definitely completely authentic.

John couldn't help his amused smile; some things never changed.

"Why don't you give your brother a call, then? See what he's got lying around."

The glare he received in return was answer enough so he just snorted and picked up the paper. "Alright then, suit yourself."

They stayed in companionable silence for a couple of minutes until Sherlock looked up and put his hands on the laptop with a tired expression. "You know what I really would like, John?"

The doctor's ears perked up at that, shifting a bit in his seat.

Their relationship had him on edge all the time; it was like being a teenager all over again. Sherlock only had to look at him with those piercing pale eyes of his and John would be wrapped around his little finger.

"What's that?" the doctor asked, unconsciously licking his lips as he stared at his partner's mouth.

"Jam" Sherlock said, matter-of-factly.

John shook his head, thrown off "What?"

"Jam. I want Jam. Been in the mood for it all day." The detective repeated, dismissively.

"It's only eight in the morni-"

"Week! Been in the mood for it all week." Sherlock went back to the laptop and gestured vaguely towards the kitchen "Weren't you going to get- I don't know, milk and stuff? From the shops?"

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" The doctor asked skeptically and Sherlock looked sheepish. "Does this have something to do with those skin samples in the fridge?"

"Maybe"

John's huff was affectionate and he got up, folding his paper and placing it on the coffee table. "Alright, fine. I was going today anyway, might as well do it now." He said, in defeat.

He went to their room, changed into proper trousers and a jumper before going to Sherlock and brushing their hands together softly. It was strange how they'd developed this Thing with their hands – It was a Thing now. John guessed it had a lot to do with how Sherlock's hands were a vivid reminder of what the man had survived and of the weeks John had sat by his side holding them.

Sherlock's fingers curled softly around John's and the doctor couldn't help but lean down to press a kiss to the back of his lover's hand as well as bump their noses together, stealing a kiss that ended in a shared smile.

"Don't blow up the flat while I'm gone" he warned with a mock stern face and Sherlock only smiled a bit mischievously back at him.

"I won't"

\--

He waited exactly three minutes after John had left the flat and then he jumped out of his seat and snatched his phone from the coffee table.

 _Address_ \- SH

Lestrade's response didn't take even a minute and he was dashing to his room and pulling his clothes on in a hurry. He almost forgot his gloves in his haste and had to run back to get them.

Hailing a cab, he quickly made his way across London to the crime scene where he was greeted by the Yard's finest, looking frustrated and clueless as per usual.

"Sherlock, hey" Lestrade waved him down and frowned a bit as he looked around "Where's John?"

Sherlock kept his hands firmly inside his pockets and looked past him as though dismissing the question "He was otherwise occupied, now where's the corpse?"

"Of course, that's what he wants to see" Donovan chimed in dryly over Lestrade's shoulder.

The consulting detective could only wish she had met the same fate as Anderson – kicked out of the force and out of his way, but no.

Ignoring her, Lestrade just motioned towards a shed where the naked body of a girl lay on the floor.

She was face up, arm visibly twisted and skin littered with bruises. There were several scars on her legs, but almost no trace of blood anywhere. The body had been in the river for quite some time before being fished out – it looked blue and swollen.

"All evidence conveniently washed away" Lestrade murmured under his breath.

Sherlock didn't even have the energy to snort at that. If only.

He could see the evidence clear as day. The circular bruises on her wrists, the tears on her lips, the finger marks under her knees. Her cheeks had mirrored idents on either side, her hair had been pulled out in places and there was human skin under her fingernails-

The image of the assault became clearer and clearer in Sherlock's mind. He didn't even notice when he started to breathe irregularly, but he didn't feel so steady on his feet. He looked away.

"The body was found by some kids early this morning. Asked the business owners around, nobody saw anything. No windows to this side of the river, rough neighborhood used to the sounds of yelling at night…" Lestrade shrugged as he narrated the information they had gathered so far.

Sherlock moved around a bit, taking in some of the details he hadn't seen at first and cataloguing them for later. He needed to take his gloves off so he could examine the crime scene properly, but he couldn't show his hands when he was surrounded by people.

"Lestrade, I need to be alone, get your sniffer dogs out of here, please." He ordered matter-of-factly. It was a request he'd made countless times before, unlikely to rouse any suspicions.

"Why do you want to be alone with her, Freak?" Donovan demanded, her face twisting in disgust as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Finally showing your true colors, are you?"

"You've got ten minutes" Lestrade said to Sherlock. "Come on, Sally, not now. Let him do his thing" he told his co-worker, ushering her away from the scene.

"That's exactly what I'm worried he'll do" Sherlock heard her say, but it was very faint since they had already started to walk away.

\--

_Where are you?_

It was, of course, a text from John.

_Where did you go? I just came back, the flat's empty._

Stating the obvious. He was clearly agitated already.

_Sherlock?_

_Nothing to worry about. Be back in a bit._ \- SH

It was probably the wrong thing to say as John's immediate response came in a flood.

_Sherlock, what are you doing?_

_Should I text your brother?_

_I'm texting your brother, I swear to god-_

Oh for god's sake! Sherlock gripped his phone, exasperated and responded.

 _With a corpse right now. Lestrade kept texting._ – SH

 _DON'T TEXT MYCROFT_ – SH

He added that last part for good measure.

In John's defense, it was the first time Sherlock left him behind on a case since they had returned to Baker Street.

He was so focused on texting John – and stopping his partner from mobilizing the entire British Intelligence – that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching and only realized he was no longer alone when Donovan's voice cut through the scene.

"What's he doing? Is he taking pictures? Oh my god, see what I told you? The freak's taking pictures!" she accused, presumably to Lestrade, Sherlock hadn't turned around yet.

He almost dropped the phone in his haste to put his gloves back on before any of them got close enough to see. And, in hindsight, that must have looked a bit suspicious.

"Sherlock…?" Lestrade prompted calmly, patiently.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and huffed out a frustrated breath. "I was texting John!" he shoved his phone screen right towards them, making sure his tone sounded like _I don't know how you people manage to find your way out the door in the morning_ rather than defensive.

Sighing tiredly and rubbing his eyes, Lestrade just came closer and crouched near him "So, what have you got, then?"

\--

"Why didn't you tell me you went with Greg? I could have come with" John asked when he had returned, and he sounded just a bit hurt.

Sherlock honestly had expected to be back before John's return from Tesco but the crime scene had been further away than he had anticipated.

"He kept texting. I hadn't planned on going and you were doing the shopping" he shrugged as he plopped down on one of the kitchen stools.

John hummed and seemed to accept his answer.

"So how was it?"

"Homicide, multiple suspects, most likely a group effort" he rattled off. He knew the easiest way to lie was to tell the truth while omitting facts.

"Got any leads yet?"

They did, actually. Sherlock had found the marks on the girl's body to be too precise, almost window dressing, like someone was putting her on display. The autopsy revealed what he'd already guessed: she had been kept and raped for extended periods of time. This wasn't a group of drunken men disposing of a body after they realized their mistake; they were dealing criminals smart enough to pull off long-term captivity.

But he couldn't tell John any of that, could he.

"Ah… some. I need to analyze water samples. Going to Barts." He told him and got up from his stool like the conversation was over.

"Alright, let me just put my coat back on, then." John said – he had his back turned to him still.

When he turned and saw the hesitance on Sherlock's face, he frowned. Something was off. He opened his mouth, about to ask what it was, but his lover looked away.

"Yes. Yeah, you do that." Sherlock agreed, but he was leaving the kitchen, avoiding John's gaze.

Still frowning, John followed the detective out into the living room. "Did you… not want me to go?" he asked slowly, very confused.

"No!" Sherlock replied immediately and too emphatically "I mean no- no, I didn't not want you to go. I wanted you to go- to come. You can come to Barts." Jesus.

"Are you alright?" John asked, each word slow like he was trying to figure them out as he spoke.

"What? Yes. Perfectly fine. Come now, John. We're wasting time." _We._ That's better.

"Alright, you mad man." The doctor murmured, but his huffed smile was indulgent. He grabbed his discarded coat and followed his partner out the door.

\--

"We've got one of the rapists!" Greg announced once he'd barged into the flat.

John almost jumped from his seat in alarm, his eyes wide as he stared towards Greg and Sherlock in turn. What- what? How did Greg even know- and weren't they all dead-

Sherlock did not meet his eyes as he got up from his place on the couch.

"One should consider knocking before invading other people's homes, Lestrade." He said with a low, growling voice while piercing the policeman with his narrowed eyes.

"I never knock" the man replied, frowning a bit.

"Well maybe you should start to" was the immediate, but almost inaudible reply that came through the young genius' gritted teeth.

"Ok, what? What are we talking about?" John, of course, had gotten up from his chair and was now standing behind his lover with a very deep frown on his face.

Greg walked further into the flat and ignored both John's questions and Sherlock's antagonism. "You were right. It was in the dirt samples we got from under her nails." He said, sounding victorious. He always got like this when a lead turned out to be true. "We tracked him down; the mud on his boot matches."

"I'm sorry, _what are we talking about_?" John interrupted very pointedly, turning to stand in between Lestrade and his flatmate. "Sherlock?" he demanded, his voice all Captain Watson.

Sighing very loudly and rolling his eyes in exasperation, Sherlock plopped down onto John's chair and gestured vaguely with his left hand before remembering his missing fingers and hiding them in the pockets of his dressing gown. Lestrade, unsurprisingly, hadn't noticed. "It's the case, John. The same one with the water samples we looked over yesterday."

And by 'we', he meant that John had sat and watched – bored out of his skull – as Sherlock stared through his microscope for hours, humming here and there and thinking out loud.

"I thought that was a murder?" John countered, still frowning, but now with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowing the slightest bit.

"It is, also." Greg agreed, reminding the other two that he was still in the room. "Listen, can you come down to the station? We have him in custody. We can use him to find the others." He was addressing Sherlock, now.

"Yes, yes. We'll meet you there" Sherlock replied. And it was hard to make his usual dismissive hand gestures with his hands stuck inside his dressing gown, but he did it anyway.

Lestrade was still out of breath from his jog up the stairs, but he smiled "Alright, good."

He made for the hallway, but stopped long enough to nod towards the army doctor "Good to see you, John." And then he was out, letting the door close behind himself.

Once they were alone, the sitting room was left in total and complete silence.

John was standing there, arms crossed and staring fixedly at a point on the wall. His tongue peaked out to lick at his bottom lip, and then he cocked his head to the side and turned to look at Sherlock.

"Rapist?" he demanded.

His lover was very much not looking at him. "I may have forgotten to mention all the details of this case."

" _Oh bloody_ -" John exclaimed, pursing his lips together and huffing out his nose loudly. "Is this why you didn't take me with you that first day?"

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before answering, still facing the back wall and not John. "It's not like I planned-"

"Sherlock" John pressed, stepping closer to the chair.

"Fine. Yes it is, are you happy now?" the detective finally got up from John's chair and then closed his dressing gown with more force than was probably necessary.

"Why?"

"Because this case is important! And I didn't want- I knew what you were going to say."

"You can read my mind, now?"

Sherlock let out a frustrated noise.

"You know what I mean." He retorted.

"No, I don't. I don't know what you mean." John pressed, because he wanted Sherlock to spell it out if he was going to accuse John of mollycoddling of all things.

They both stood there having a staring contest, neither willing to back down. Eventually, Sherlock growled in frustration again and spun away, going to stand by the window before turning back sharply.

"Ok. I'm sorry. I don't even know why I didn't tell you, ok? I don't know why. You were standing there and I wanted to take the case and I didn't know how to say it and then it just- escalated." He admitted, but it was delivered almost like a line.

The apology did soothe John's anger over being left out a little bit, but he still didn't feel completely ok with the whole thing. He _was_ worried what effect the case might have on Sherlock.

"Look, can we please just-" the detective started, glancing towards the door like the passage of time was physically painful. "Lestrade's waiting for us." Us. That helped smooth things a bit more, too.

Letting out a heavy breath, but still with his lips pursed and his arms crossed, John relented. "Fine. We'll- we'll talk about this later." He acquiesced.

The words were barely out of his mouth and a whirlwind of consulting detective was swishing past him to go and get dressed for their trip to the Yard.

\--

The man in custody was a nightmare.

He admitted to having disposed of the bodies, but refused to talk about his accomplices or about where they had kept the women.

"He wasn't in on it." Sherlock declared matter-of-factly, looking at the man through the one-way mirror.

He had been allowed to interrogate their suspect, but there was only so much he could do with a freshly showered, custodial-uniformed culprit. He was going to go through the man's actual possessions, clothes and flat later.

"I'm sorry, what?" Lestrade prompted. "He just admitted he threw the bodies in the Thames-"

"He wasn't in on it as in, he didn't rape them." Sherlock clarified, like it should have been obvious. "He's not part of the group. Probably paid off to disappear with the bodies, no questions asked." He narrowed his eyes. "He's willing to go to jail for them, but why would he? They either have something on him or on someone close to him – a drug tab, most likely. He's a user, but a casual one, so he's taking the fall for someone else – his sister, probably, did you see the tattoo? He's got strong incentive, so don't bother, he's not going to give you anything. His shoes, on the other hand…" he trailed off and was already heading towards the evidence room.

"Sherlock!" the older detective shouted, irritated as he trailed after him much like John and Sally.

When they were all crammed into the short space of the evidence room and Sherlock was given access to the men's belonging, Donovan was the one to pick the conversation up again.

She crossed her eyes over her chest, unimpressed. "Why would they need someone else to get rid of the body? This guy didn't even cover his tracks properly-"

"Covered them well enough that you needed me to come in and point out the obvious" he replied immediately, giving her a fake smile before turning back to the bag in his hands. "Clean-up is tedious – and dangerous. You're most likely to get caught hiding a body than murdering it. Obvious."

He twirled around sharply and held out the boots in his hands. "If you'll excuse me, I need a lab." Another one of his punctuation smiles. "Come, John."

\--

He was, in fact, so focused on the The Work this time that he just went straight into the forensics lab instead of stealing the evidence off to Barts like he'd often do.

"Sherlock?" John prodded, looking over his shoulders as if to check that no one was paying them any mind.

"Hmm"

"Are you-" he started, but was promptly interrupted when a young investigator walked into the room with a handful of papers.

"Sir, we've run him through the system, no matches." The mousey boy said, fumbling with his papers like he needed a cheat sheet to report to Lestrade. "We're trying to get a match on the samples we took from the body-"

"Don't bother." Sherlock interrupted from where he was looking through a microscope down at a slide of dirt.

"I'm- I'm sorry?" the kid looked terrified. He'd obviously been informed that Sherlock Holmes ate Yarders for breakfast.

Sherlock actually looked up from what he was doing to look at the intruder. But when he looked down again, it was clear he was addressing Lestrade. "You're not going to find them in the database. They're not registered sex offenders."

Greg took pity on the young investigator and told him to get back to it. Then he crossed his arms, and tilted his head at Sherlock, as though to say 'Well?'

"You're looking at this the wrong way. There's a plan- something- some reason why they're doing this. They're not- this isn't your run-of-the-mill boring rape case; I wouldn't be here if it was."

Donovan rolled her eyes and made an annoyed sound low in her throat, but said nothing.

"What are you talking about?" this time, it was John who asked.

"They're not-" he stopped, thinking "rapists."

Now Donovan really did throw her hands up in the air in surrender. "Oh great. Did you hear that, boss? Our double gang-rape homicide wasn't committed by rapists." She said, equal parts frustration and sarcasm. "It's like he wants us to waste our time."

She turned around and left the room, unable to keep her temper.

Lestrade sighed and then looked up at the younger detective "Look, just- just tell me what you find, ok? I'll be- I need to get an ID on these guys, so if there's even a small chance-"

"There isn't" Sherlock interrupted, not looking up from his slides.

Exasperated, Greg carried on. "Right, well. I still have to do it anyway." He said matter-of-factly "I'll be outside, when you're done."

A noncommittal hum was all the response he got.

As the door was closing behind Greg, Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked up at John. "It's like they're blind on purpose." He told him, shaking his head. And then grabbed the other shoe and started scraping something off the laces.

His doctor didn't enthusiastically agree like he had been expecting. In fact, he was oddly quiet.

Sherlock spared him another glance before returning to his work; the gloves finally coming off since they were alone in the room.

John eyed him a couple of times and then traced his fingers across the table, looking very much like he was trying to properly phrase something.

"So, ahm." He started, clearing his throat "What's with the assumptions-"

"Assumptions?" Sherlock interrupted, automatically.

"Well- I mean, the- why are you saying these men aren't rapists? I thought we have already established-"

"I'm not insane, John. I know the victims were raped, but that doesn't give us the motive. We don't know why they did it. And if we don't know that, we don't know how they choose the victims, where they keep them or how they're going to strike next. If we're going to stop them, we need to find out why."

The look on John's face was one Sherlock wasn't certain he wanted to dissect. He actually looked befuddled, but it was a look that carried a bit of pity.

"Why? Sherlock, they're… there isn't a reason for these things. People do it because… " John couldn't find the words to say that rapists raped because they simply did.

Sherlock huffed in disdain, like John had just won himself a place near Anderson in the consulting detective's scale of regard. He dropped the shoe onto the table and turned to look at his lover with undivided attention.

"See?" he pointed out accusingly " _This_ is why I didn't want you involved. You're going to attach meaning to everything I say. You think I'm trying to- to what? Give myself some kind of closure?" his expression reminded John of when Sherlock had been angry at him for starting to believe Moriarty's lies, back before The Fall.

"That's not-"

"I _know_ when I'm right." he bit out, using a sharp voice he rarely used on his lover. "I'd have made these same deductions with or without Serbia. These men are not doing this for fun! They're intelligent, precise, and they have a clear goal; we're dealing with professionals." He picked the shoe up again pointedly and looked away from John. "If you're going to keep acting like the lot of them" his chin gestured towards the door "then by all means go outside and join them while I work to actually catch the murderers."

John had been expecting some kind of backlash, but it was like he'd opened the seven gates of hell. Never mind that earlier that day, it'd been him angry at the detective and not the other way around. Determined to get past it, he drew in a long, heavy breath and then counted to five slowly in his head before letting it out.

"Ok. Ok, fine." He said, something like compromise making him deflate the slightest bit. "I am not- I'm not trying to undermine your deductions. But a case like this- Sherlock, you aren't a machine." He told his lover firmly, holding his gaze unblinkingly for a good few seconds. "And the way it's going… can you blame me for being worried?"

Sherlock looked away.

"I don't think this would be an easy case for anybody. But you can't pretend it doesn't bother you, because I know you and I can see it does." he voice was still level, but a bit softer now "Just promise me you won't shut me out. That's all I'm asking."

The detective had stopped what he'd been doing and was now just staring fixedly down at the table with a blank expression on his face. Finally, he drew in a deep breath and sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers. "I know. I'm- I don't want to shut you out." A pause. "I'm sorry."

John's stance softened the rest of the way and he walked the short distance between them to brush his fingers tentatively against his lover's. Their noses bumped together as Sherlock leaned into him, but John pulled him down further and placed a kiss on his forehead. "I'm sorry, too."

They stood there quietly for a while, mouths close together as though breathing each other's air, eyes closed and ears picking up on the steady beat of the silence in the room.

"It is. Difficult for me." Sherlock admitted after a long time, and neither of them moved.

"I know"

" _Despite_ the motivation being different." He reiterated pointedly as he stepped away, trying to lighten the mood again. For the first time that day, it worked.

John smiled indulgently and bumped their shoulders together. "Ok, you bloody genius. Go prove everybody wrong."

\--

"So who's this guy, exactly?" John was asking as he frowned and followed Lestrade's lead.

"Well, we don't know for sure how or if he's tied to the murders at all, but he's the owner of the house." The DI gestured towards the property up ahead.

Sherlock had narrowed down four possible locations that their body-disposal guy could have visited in the last twenty four hours based on the particular residues in his shoes. Once it was established that two of them were empty fields, one was too far away and the last was an old farm house, it wasn't hard to decide which to visit first.

"Anyway, he's some retired office worker. Nine to five, no wife or kids, record's clean as can be – not even a parking ticket." Lestrade shrugged. "He doesn't live here, either. Owns the property, but he rents a place in London."

Sherlock, who had been silent all the way from the car, just hummed as he put his fingers together under his chin. "And what _have_ you found on the property so far?"

"The last body, Elizabeth Carr, was definitely here. There are traces of her blood in the grass."

"But?" Sherlock pressed.

Lestrade gave him a side look but sighed "But there are no signs a murder was committed inside the house. Or outside, for that matter."

Both the John and DI heard a snort coming from their favorite consulting detective as the man walked ahead echoing "No signs" as he went.

But the whole afternoon would consist of Sherlock walking up and down the halls of the house, checking every nook and cranny, going upstairs and then down and then up again. There was a bloody basement and a bloody attic and both were spot-clean.

"There has to be something we're missing!" he yelled in frustration, walking a hole into the carpet as he moved up and down. "This is the perfect house for a murder!"

John had already given up and was sat on one of the comfy chairs in the living room, watching as his lover paced.

"Sherlock- maybe this was just a detour. Maybe they killed her outside somewhere?" he offered a bit tiredly. Honestly he was getting dizzy just watching the taller man move.

"We're checking the surroundings" Lestrade assured, but he too looked a bit tired. "John might be right. And we still have to interrogate the owner, either way."

But Sherlock was like a dog with a bone and they all knew it; he wasn't going to stop until he found what he was looking for.

Murmuring to himself continuously, he kept his pacing and his thinking, his fingers splayed up and almost vibrating against the others as he tapped them together. John was glad Lestrade was paying his lover no mind, because it was pretty easy to spot the empty fingers in the gloves, like this.

Suddenly, like someone had just hit him over the head, Sherlock spun around and then stopped dramatically, his eyes widening the slightest bit.

He tapped his foot against the wooden boards of the floor. And then he did it again. And one more time.

Lestrade was looking at him like he was crazy. And Donovan, who had just returned with a report from the outside team, had her nose scrunched up as she stared at him up and down. "What's wrong with him?" she asked.

Even John had to shrug.

And then Sherlock was off, walking down the main corridor while murmuring under his breath, just to walk back up again. And then he disappeared off towards the kitchen, not offering a word of explanation.

\--

As he climbed down the stairs to the basemen two at a time, he couldn't believe he hadn't realized it before. The house had wood flooring all throughout, and it all made the same hollow sound because of the basement. But the basement wasn't big enough. It wouldn't be possible for him to walk up and down the main corridor, all the while hearing the sound travelling the exact same way if there wasn't an equally large space underneath.

There had to be a room under the house they still hadn't seen.

He counted the steps as he walked across the basement, and surely enough, he came up a least 10 steps short. _Where was it?_

With less care than was probably allowed in a crime scene, he started pulling things away from the wall. He jumped on the washing machine, crawled under the table and almost comically sniffed around the books on the bookshelf. He had the urge to pull on them one by one, but refrained. He was half glad none of the others were here to witness it.

When he pulled one of the large stacks of cardboard boxes away from the back of the room, he noticed that the wooden cabinet behind it wasn't actually mounted to the wall. He pushed it away.

"I knew it!" he couldn't help the glee at seeing the dusty door behind it. He loved few things in the world more than being proven right.

Immediately, he yanked down on the handle and opened the door, but the room that lay beyond was in complete darkness.

"Hello?" he called, just in case a new victim was already living there, but there was no response.

He felt the wall blindly for a light switch and when he found it, he had to squint as the room came to life before him.

There was a single mattress on the floor, a bowl, chains and a metal pole that was bolted to both the floor and the ceiling. There were dried splotches of blood scattered in different places.

His throat tightened and he closed his eyes. It was like his entire being was recoiling from the scene. This was- god, this was-

A voice in his head that sounded a lot like John told him to _know your limits_. And it was right. He'd found the room, he'd done his job; the police could take it over from here. But even as he decided to leave the crime scene that looked so much like his own, his mind was already running a hundred deductions per minute.

_Newly installed, it was commissioned for this… blood pattern on the left was from the leg… head wounds bleed a lot… non-fatal… a week, maybe two… there were five men, possibly six… it was so staged… it was like a play- made for show… for show… for SHOW_

He felt his back hit the wall as he tried to escape his racing mind. He didn't want the input from the scene anymore, he didn't want to be here.

His right hand found the door knob and he gripped it hard with his three fingers, but when he tried to twist it, it didn't move at all. It was a one way door.

_Oh, no._

He already knew. He already knew it was coming. He could already feel his throat closing up and the walls closing in and no matter how tightly he wrapped his coat around himself it wasn't enough.

"John!" he tried to call out, but his voice was barely there.

His hands were sweating inside his gloves and his scarf was too tight around his neck and he couldn't breathe. "John? John! I'm locked in!" he attempted a second time and the last of it made it through.

He tried to tell himself that there was no reason for panic - this was just a crime scene. He'd been to hundreds of crime scenes; it was fine and-

The door was opened in a powerful move and only then did Sherlock realize he'd been pounding furiously at it, while still pressed against the wall by its side.

"How did you even find this place?" Lestrade's voice echoed through the room as the man stepped in, soon followed by Donavan and then John.

Where he normally would have rattled on his brilliant deduction with the floorboards and sounds, this time he couldn't speak. He couldn't even bring himself to fake it. His energy was focused entirely on not letting his current state show – and he wasn't sure he was being successful.

John came over to him and he looked confused "Sherlock? You ok?" he asked, actually having to lean down to look at his lover's hidden face.

Sherlock shook his head. "I can't breathe." He said as softly as he could, because there was nothing he wanted less right now than for the other people in the room to realize what was happening to him.

John's entire demeanor changed as he registered the words, and he promptly placed himself between his partner and the rest of the room.

"Come on, let's go upstairs." He said in an equally hushed tone. "I got you, ok? I got you. You're fine."

"Hey! Where are you going?!" Lestrade shouted at them when it was clear they were making their way to the opened door.

John had to think fast, but he'd also been doing this for years, so it came out naturally "Something about the paint on fence, you know how he is." he said over his shoulder, even as Sherlock did not once turn around to face the police officers.

They made their way upstairs and out the door to the back yard, where John promptly had Sherlock sit down on the unkempt bench that was there.

He stood right in front of him, a strong presence between the detective and the rest of the world, but he didn't attempt to touch him or comfort him. He knew that when this happened, Sherlock needed physical space and silence so he could close his eyes and try to breathe again.

But the detective kept drawing long breaths that were obviously not filling his lungs the way they should. And the longer it went on, the worse a panic he was in over not being able to breathe.

Then he opened his eyes and in a split second, he was hunching over and throwing up all over John's trouser legs and the grass beneath. His hand reached out to bunch in John's sweater as he continued to heave forcefully. The doctor dutifully didn't move an inch out of his reach.

Fingers ran through Sherlock's hair, keeping some of his curls away from his face so they wouldn't get caught in the mess. He dry heaved a few more times, still holding onto the doctor, and then his body finally stopped spasming enough that he could lift his head and wipe his mouth with his ungloved hand.

"We're going home." John's voice was steady and kind. But he also managed to sound very much in command, even if his legs were half covered in vomit.

Sherlock's vision was still spinning a bit and he felt light headed from the effort of emptying his stomach, but he shook his head. "John- this case-"

John leaned down a bit so they were closer to each other and he squeezed one of Sherlock's hand in his "I'll come back with you; even today if you want to. But let's go home now, ok?"

Sherlock wanted to say that he wasn't actually protesting, but he couldn't voice the realization he'd had just yet.

He nodded and it earned him a smile.

"Alright. So just- let me clean this up and I'll be right back. Even a cab won't pick us up looking like this." John gestured to his trousers.

There was an apology on the tip of Sherlock's tongue, but he knew the doctor had no use for it, so he just nodded and watched him enter the house through the back door.

When John walked into the kitchen, looking for paper towels, Lestrade was stood there frowning at him. He'd clearly come up to bring forensics down with him.

"What the hell happened to you?" the man asked.

John had kicked some of the sick off, but there was a lot still there and the smell wasn't that faint either. He was a terrible liar, so he made sure he was facing the sink, away from Lestrade, before answering "Sherlock's got a bloody stomach bug. I told him not to go out on a case today, but you try stopping him from doing something he wants to do." He said with his best Disgruntled Sidekick voice.

Using paper towels he'd found on the counter, John cleaned himself the best he could before he turned to face the DI again. Sure, his trousers were now damp, but he didn't think anyone would notice it much.

"I'm taking him back to Baker Street. You don't want him contaminating your crime scene, do you?" He gave Greg a pointed look and then threw the crumpled paper towel he held into the bin.

" _You_ just contaminated my crime scene" Lestrade told him, gesturing to the trash can, but it was half-hearted. "Alright, alright. You go and feed his nibs chicken soup or whatever it is- but have him text me when you get home, alright? I need to know if he's got anything on the room."

John nodded even as he had no intention of doing that, but Lestrade was satisfied and turned back to join the other yarders.

The ride home was silent, but filled with a very physical Sherlock. He had removed both his gloves, despite rarely doing so in public, and held John's hand between his. All the while keeping his head on the shorter man's shoulder and his eyes closed as they made their way to Baker Street.

When they made it up the stairs, Sherlock made a beeline to their room and John only stopped to leave his trousers in the laundry bin before following the detective.

Sherlock had already left his Belstaff by the door, but he'd also removed his suit jacket once he'd come into the room. Now he was on his side, lying on the bed and staring at John silently.

John took off his sweater – he wasn't sure whether it had been soiled too. Wearing only his shirt and boxers, he joined his partner on the bed.

"Feeling better?" he asked after neither of them had moved or spoken in a couple of minutes.

Sherlock drew in a long, steady breath that filled his lungs and left as a sigh; he nodded.

There was something about this bed, about lying with his back up against the wall and John next to him; it felt unbelievably safe. He reached out and pulled the doctor closer to him so that the shorter man was essentially being used as a blanket. Then he pressed his nose to John's hair, inhaling the scent and enjoying the man's arms wrapping around his body.

"It was fine. The bodies, the suspects, this whole case- I was handling it just fine." Sherlock started, eventually "But the room, when the door closed, it was just..." he trailed off and when he looked up, John could tell he was scared "I- I'm paranoid, John." He finally admitted.

John shifted back a bit so he could see his lover's face properly. Then he ran his hand comfortingly over Sherlock's even as he frowned in confusion "Paranoid about what?"

"You remember Baskerville? How my mind was playing tricks on me? I haven't felt like that since then. But today- I just-" he shook his head "I was convinced it was Moriarty."

Completely thrown by the conclusion, John even sat up a bit to look down at his lover with an even deeper frown. "What are you talking about?"

"I know there's something off about this case. When I was there, when I saw that basement- it's so staged, John. It's not normal. Don't you see? This is the perfect game! It's exactly the kind of thing he'd do." Sherlock sat up as well, and he looked a mix between scared and frustrated.

John put a hand up in interruption "You think- you think this is some show Moriarty's putting on to mess with your head?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and rubbed at his face forcefully. "I don't know! Yes! No, I don't know- that's what I'm trying to say- I don't know if I can trust myself with this."

He shook his head and glanced back at his lover, looking lost "What if this is the way I am now? What if I spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? I wasn't scared of going after criminals before, because in the back of my mind I knew I'd win. But now… when I go into a case, I'm- I'm terrified."

The confession was something he'd never thought he'd make, but he'd been feeling like this for months and it was finally coming to the surface.

"I'm afraid because now I know what happens when I lose. And I-" his voice broke a bit and his eyes started stinging "John, I can't- there's nothing that scares me more than being sent back there."

"Sherlock, they're- they're dead. They're all dead. Moriarty's dead, he-" John started, but the detective shook his head emphatically.

"You don't know that, because I don't know that, because _Mycroft_ doesn't know that." He retaliated. "I know Jim Moriarty is dead, and I know we dismantled his intelligence, but the foot soldiers still exist."

"Yes, but without him, how would they pull something like this off? _Why_ would they?"

"Revenge?"

"Why would they stage all this if that's what they wanted? It doesn't make any sense-"

"What does it even matter!" Sherlock interrupted, shouting. He was clearly frustrated.

"Don't you see, John?! There will always be another Moriarty! There will always be another Serbia!" he bit out "It doesn't matter if I'm wrong about _this_! I could get captured tomorrow or on the next case or the one after that- it's what I do. It's who I am." He tried to explain.

"When I was there… I wanted to die. But there was nothing I could do about it, there was no way to kill myself. All I could do was exist and take it. The thought of being captured like that again- it's paralyzing me, John."

This time, the doctor had no response to give. Instead, he looked at Sherlock intently, his expression serious and thoughtful.

It was obvious to the detective that his lover had just gone on a mental tangent, but he couldn't tell what it was just from looking. The silence held for so long that he was about to open his mouth again, but John finally nodded and leaned over to kiss Sherlock on the forehead.

"I'm going to fix up dinner. Will you eat something?"

The complete non-sequitur left the detective frowning, his mouth slightly open in confusion. He nodded mechanically, because he didn't know what else to say. All he could do was stare as John got up from the bed, a smile on his face, and left the room. The door almost managed to close behind the doctor, but it stayed open much like their oddly unfinished conversation.

\--

When they were finally sat on their respective chairs, digging into their sandwiches, footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs.

Sherlock listened for the pattern and then he narrowed his eyes at John. "You texted Mycroft." He accused pointedly.

John had the decency to look sheepish, but he just shrugged as the door opened.

"Mycroft, good evening! If you would be so kind as to uninvited yourself. You know where the door is." Sherlock said immediately, not even looking up.

"You want a plate?" John offered, completely ignoring his partner's empty words.

"No. Thank you, John." Mycroft drawled as he moved across the room slowly. He lingered by the shelves as though he was looking for something, but then stopped at the fireplace and turned around. "I've got something for you, brother dear." He said, finally.

"I told you I'm not taking any cases right now, Mycroft; I've already got one. Tell him, John."

"It's not a case, Sherlock." His brother almost rolled his eyes, as though it should have been obvious. "Here." He said, and then he placed a little metal box on the coffee table.

The detective looked suspiciously between his brother and John – who was still eating like he had nothing to do with this.

He picked the box up and shook it, metal, small, possibly hollow, a hint of moving particles? With another suspicious glance at his brother, he opened the metal case. Inside it, there was a tiny capsule attached to a thin, small, metal ring.

"It's a neurotoxin pill." Mycroft supplied without prompting. "Nanotechnology developed for MI6; the prototype was put to test six months ago, this is the finished version. It detaches through voice command and kills in two minutes, fifteen seconds. Painlessly." He added that last part as added measure "I suggest humming and Morse code; just in case you find yourself without a tongue."

Sherlock was staring at it intently. And then he was looking up at John with an expression of amazement that he couldn't conceal – not even in front of Mycroft.

The silent gaze was held for such a long time that his brother was the one to smack his lips together pointedly as he swayed back and forth. "Well, then. I have a car waiting for me. Anthea will get in touch and you can sort it out with her when you'll want to go have it installed." He said, tapping his umbrella once on the floor.

"John" He nodded on the way out, and then he was gone.

Sherlock was still staring at the little device in his hand and something inexplicable was expanding in his chest like a balloon. He had never loved John as much as he did at that moment. He wouldn't have thought a human being capable of holding so much love inside themselves.

"John, I… I don't know what to say"

The doctor finally dropped the pretense of not having anything to do with the situation, and stopped eating to look at him. He shrugged "Military, remember?"

Then he left his plate where it was and came over to kneel in front of Sherlock. "Sherlock, when you died- it- it just destroyed me. But the thought of you being in pain and not being able to stop it is so much worse. So there it is. There's your invincibility, again." He placed a hand on top of the one the detective was using to hold the box. "I didn't want to reassure you with empty words, because you're right- in our line of work, who knows what's going to happen? I don't think it'll be Moriarty's men or anything like that, but you're right that it could be something else, someone else. And now, no matter what happens, you'll always have a way out."

Sherlock was still frowning at him like he couldn't believe John was a real person, because he couldn't be so lucky. No one could be this lucky.

He put the metal box down on the table and brought his hands up to cradle his lover's face before kissing him. It wasn't a chaste kiss, either; it was hungry and opened mouthed and full of tongue.

John even felt his cock twitch at the intensity of it, and he responded in kind, holding onto Sherlock's robe so he could pull the man closer.

But then the detective was breaking the kiss and pulling back just enough so that they could look each other in the eye.

"John, I want to get married." Sherlock said, completely out of the blue.

The doctor's eyes widened in surprised and he pulled back even more, as though trying to look at the younger man properly.

"I- I- what-" he spluttered, caught completely off guard. "I didn't think you- You want-"

"I want to get married" the detective reiterated. "I want to get married to you. I've never wanted anything more than I want this right now."

John couldn't even contain the startled, joyful, almost choked laugh that left him. His chest was expanding and moving in quick bursts with his breaths as he stared at Sherlock through slightly teary eyes. He laughed again, a full, beautiful thing and then he was nodding and shaking his head and laughing some more and wiping moisture from his eyes.

"Yes" he agreed, echoed, like it was equal parts obvious and equal parts insane. "Yes. Let's do it. Let's get married." He grinned, unbelieving, and kissed his equally grinning – fiancé? – again.

\--

That night, when they retreated to their room after ignoring countless texts from Lestrade, something had once again shifted in their relationship.

John had thought that they had already reached their peak; that there was nowhere else to climb. And yet, it seemed Sherlock was constantly determined to prove him wrong. Their love for each other grew, and grew, and grew, defying all odds that it could possibly grow anymore. And, sometimes, that love would manifest in shows of trust, of giving.

As they pulled on each other and kissed fiercely like they were trying to meld their bodies together, Sherlock's eyes spoke to him. The piercing, pale blue eyes were blown with lust, with love, and they wanted something from John.

"Tell me" John urged, because he could essentially read the question from Sherlock's mind.

The younger man was pulsing, unbelievably hard under him as they rocked against each other fully clothed.

"I want…" the detective started, eyes closing and mouth searching John's like he thirsted for it. They met in a wet, sloppy kiss that was all tongues and moans.

When they pulled apart, John rocked their hips together very pointedly. His legs on either side of Sherlock's body giving him complete control of the situation. "Yes?"

The low, throaty growl that he extracted from his lover was delicious. He couldn't help but grin against his frustrated detective.

Finally, Sherlock pulled back enough so they could stare each other in the eyes again and he spoke in an almost whisper "I want to be inside you."

John had been expecting it, but his heart still jumped a beat when he heard it.

They hadn't, ever. It had been well over a year since their return to Baker Street, and their physical relationship had progressed tremendously well. Sherlock became more and more adventurous about touching and exploring John's body. He had been much slower in allowing John to return the favor, however.

It took him months to be able to take his clothes off during sex. It took him even longer to allow John to kiss his way down his body, to take him into his mouth like Sherlock had done to him so early on. Still, no matter how intimate, intense, hot, mind-blowing or constant their sex got, neither had been inside the other. That was a line only Sherlock would be able to cross, when and if he wanted to.

And now he wanted to.

John leaned down and kissed him hungrily in response. The moan that was dragged out of his throat made it clear what he thought about the suggestion.

"God, yes" he breathed out, kissing Sherlock again before parting only long enough to pull both his and Sherlock's shirt off.

But then the detective put a hand over his just as he was reaching for the buttons on their trousers. "Wait, I- don't we need… something for this?" Sherlock asked, stilling him.

The question brought just a bit of blood back into John's head as he processed the information "I- ah, actually…" he murmured and then he got off Sherlock and the bed.

He rummaged through his things purposefully, knowing exactly what he was looking for and where he kept it – away from his prying and all-seeing lover. When he came back to bed, Sherlock was arching an eyebrow in surprise.

Not only was there a bottle of lube in John's hand, but it was one that had clearly seen quite a lot of use.

Under the detective's scrutiny, John cleared his throat "I didn't- well, I mean, I had been thinking about it. And, well, just in case, you know?" now he suddenly felt embarrassed by his forethought.

"You've used it" Sherlock's pointed out, fixated on that fact.

Again the doctor cleared his throat and looked away "I wanted to try it, first. I wanted to- be prepared in case you- you wanted-"

"To fuck you?" the detective finished for him.

"Yes, well- yes."

"You've thought about it." It wasn't a question.

"Of course I've thought about it. I've thought about a lot of things." John's fingers were playing with the cap of the lube as he admitted it.

Try as he might – and granted, he wasn't trying very hard – Sherlock could not stop himself from imagining John locked in the bathroom, his hand fisted around his cock and two fingers deep within himself as he came, Sherlock's name on his lips.

The detective felt himself grow a tiny bit harder.

Then John was rejoining him on the bed and _finallyfinallyfinally_ getting rid of their trousers and pants. Their erections brushed against each other and it was deliciously painful. God, they were both so ready.

"John, I've… never done this before. You have to show me what to do." Sherlock spoke then, lying back against the pillows and looking half debauched and half lost.

Of course, the detective knew the logistics; he'd been on the other side of the logistic hundreds of times. He just had no idea how it was done when you actually cared whether or not the person in the receiving end was in pain.

"How do you want to do it?" John asked, and his gesturing clarified that he was talking about their positions.

Sherlock, who was still lying on his back, only had to give it a second's thought before he answered "Like this. I want to look at you."

He wanted to see John's face the whole time. He wanted to see any micro expression the doctor would make so he could be sure he wasn't hurting him.

"You want me to ride you?" John asked, and his voice was equal parts surprised and aroused.

Sherlock nodded.

After over a year, John thought he had mastered navigating their physical intimacy and avoiding being a patronizing twat. He hadn't had the need to rein himself back in ages, but this? This he had to be sure of.

He bent down to kiss his detective, but did not move to straddle him just yet. "You sure, love? If you were on top, you could control things better."

"That's exactly what I don't want." The detective replied matter-of-factly, shaking his head "If I have to worry the whole time about whether or not I'm hurting you, or going too fast, or just- I'm not going to get into it."

It was a reasonable answer, John thought, and so he nodded and leaned down to kiss his partner's lips again. "Alright"

And so, like he had fantasized a million times before, John moved up on the bed and put his leg over Sherlock's side to sit on his lap. They were both breathing erratically, eyes fixed on each other, pupils dilated and mouths open.

Sherlock could only watch, hungrily, as John opened the bottle cap with movements that spoke of familiarity and coated his fingers with lube before reaching behind himself. His doctor had long grown out of any shame when it came to pleasuring himself in front of Sherlock. A huge part of their initial sexual relationship had relied solely on John masturbating while the detective watched on.

They had both grown to love watching and being watched. The intrinsic trust in the exchange made the whole thing very intense and intimate for both of them.

He couldn't see John's fingers actually disappearing into himself, but he watched with intent the expressions his doctor made. And then John shifted so that he was rocking back onto his fingers and rocking forward to grind their cocks together.

"Oh god, John" Sherlock moaned, hiding his face in John's neck. Closing his eyes and welcoming the sensations. "If you keep doing that…" he warned, trailing off.

"Sorry" John said smiling as he stopped grinding so purposefully onto Sherlock's cock. "You just feel really good."

He could feel the detective's answering smile on his skin.

When John finally positioned himself properly and lined them up, they stopped moving altogether and just stared at each other in anticipation.

"You ready?" he asked

Sherlock nodded "I feel like I should be the one asking that" he said in a raspy voice.

John leaned over to place a peck on the tip of his nose "Well, I am" he assured.

Slowly, he started lowering himself onto his lover's cock; it was unlike anything he had tried before. His fingers didn't really measure up to the real thing and he felt his thighs trembling in the effort to keep his descent steady.

He closed his eyes for a moment to completely focused on what he was doing. He needed to relax; he should probably have spent a bit more time opening himself up.

"God" he breathed out once he finally felt Sherlock's thighs under his arse. His hands were trembling on the detective's stomach as he held on for support. He was trying to stay as still as he could, because any movement would pull at him very uncomfortably.

"I just- need a minute" he said and his voice was so breathless that he wondered if Sherlock even heard him.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Sherlock's face flushed and his mouth half open. With his heavy-lidded eyes, the detective looked like he was in total bliss. The sight went straight to John's cock and he twitched; this was amazing.

"Ok, I'm- I'm gonna move now." He said, when he finally felt brave enough to do it.

Sherlock, who still wasn't speaking, just looked at him through hooded eyes and nodded several times, his hand twitching near John's thighs.

The first few strokes were tentative and hurt more than they felt good. John could feel himself pulsing around Sherlock's cock and he tried to take it slow. A tentative angling of his hips made for a better position and more control, so after that he started picking up the pace a bit.

He wasn't sure when the tables turned, but maybe it was when the lube heated up because every movement became easier than the previous. He found that when he moved in a somewhat circular pattern, he could feel a brush to his prostate and after that he let himself go completely.

Sherlock became a writhing mess under him. He had a hand thrown over his eyes, his head facing off to the side and his teeth digging into his lips. His moans were throaty and breathy and nothing close to words escaped him.

Suddenly the detective jerked and drove up to meet John half way, but when he did it, his eyes shot open and he seemed alarmed.

"That was… pretty bloody good" John assured him, realizing that all this time Sherlock had been holding back from thrusting into him. "Do that again"

And Sherlock did. Soon they were thrusting up and into each other, and John couldn't believe how amazing it was to have something hammering against his prostate like that. He bent over, unable to hold himself properly upright and reached for his own cock, tugging at it rapidly because he knew he was almost there.

He felt it build up like no other orgasm he'd had before. It was intense and overwhelming and he thought he'd black out for a second there.

"Oh my god, Sherlock. My bloody god, I'm fucking- jesus-" he babbled, still bent over as he came all over them both. When he opened his eyes he could see the mess he'd made on Sherlock's torso and something primal inside of him reveled in it.

He could also now feel that his arse was very much sticky; Sherlock had come right with him.

Slowly, he let himself fall on top of his lover; he felt boneless. He hid his face in Sherlock's neck and just breathed him in for a good couple of minutes.

"That was amazing" he spoke into his lover's skin when he could finally catch his breath.

"Yes" was Sherlock's breathy reply.

"That was _amazing_ " he repeated, still dazed.

"Hmmhmm"

"Are you ok?"

"Hmmm"

John propped himself up onto his elbows despite really not wanting to move and looked at his partner worriedly "Hey, talk to me? Are you ok?"

Sherlock nodded minutely "I just- don't think my brain cells are working anymore" he finally said.

That startled a laugh out of John, who slumped back down and just grinned into his partner's skin.

"Now I know what to do to slow down this big brain of yours" he added smugly.

"Oh, be quiet!"

\--

They woke up to someone pounding on the door.

Granted it was much later than either of them would usually get up, but the previous night's activities made for a very tired couple of crime-solvers.

John was the one to groan angrily at the noise and finally give up on sleep. "I'll get it" he bit out, grumpy as he had all rights to be.

But Sherlock saw the slight flinch on his lover's face as the man moved to sit up, and he put a hand over John's and shook his head "I'll go" he offered, but then didn't move at all. He was staring at the doctor intently, and it was clear to John that his detective was trying to assess the damage.

"Stop looking at me like that. I was half planning to seduce you into round two, this morning" John said, and it probably wasn't true, but it helped ease the concern on his lover's face. "It's a nice sort of ache." He added, because there was no use trying to deny the soreness altogether – his lover was a bloody detective.

His cheeky grin sealed the deal and Sherlock grinned back, leaning in for a kiss--

And then the pounding on the door resumed and the detective yelled out in frustration, before jumping off the bed, pulling his pajamas and dressing gown on before slamming the door to their bedroom open. "Someone had better be dying!" he shouted towards the living room, to John's amusement.

When Sherlock opened the door to the flat with much more force than was probably necessary, he was unsurprised to see his friendly neighborhood policeman standing there.

" _What_ , Lestrade?" he barked.

"So you _are_ alive, then?" the DI smiled, pointedly ignoring his obvious annoyance.

Sherlock rolled his eyes in exasperation and then shoved both his hands inside his pockets.

"Yes. Obviously. What do you want?"

"Did you not get my texts? We have a breakthrough on the case-"

"I got them, I was just _otherwise occupied_." The consulting detective pointed out matter-of-factly.

Realization dawned on Lestrade's face, and for a moment Sherlock was impressed that the man had actually deduced what he and John had been up to. The DI was quick to prove otherwise: "Oh, yeah. Are you feeling better? Sorry, I know you were a bit under the weather yesterday, but listen-"

"Is that Greg?" John rounded the corner into the living room, looking extremely confused in his large bathrobe. His hair was still dry so he clearly hadn't started his shower yet.

The policeman only vaguely registered the scene as odd, frowning at John's potentially naked form before nodding at him in greeting. "Yeah, but listen. I need you to come to the Yard. We have a video, now." He was looking specifically at Sherlock again. "We might be able to get to our current victim in time. No body yet, we think they still have her."

John's face fell a bit. So much for their day lying in bed together doing nothing.

Sherlock even looked at him for a moment, disappointment also clear on his face. But the detective wouldn't be able to turn his back on this case, so John just sighed in defeat and nodded back.

"I'll go get dressed." He announced to the room, turning back the way he came.

\--

"A what?"

"A snuff film company. They're selling videos of these girls, everything from the rape to the murders – it's all recorded."

John had his eyes closed and his hand up to stop Lestrade from talking as he processed the information.

"So they're doing some kind of… real life rape porn?"

"Exactly" the DI replied and he looked equals parts elated that they finally had the lead they wanted all along and weighed down by the darker turn the case had just taken.

Sherlock was staring off blankly into the distance, his eyes unfocused as his mind worked rapidly "The owner of the house." He said, eventually "He's a client. He was watching the movies."

Lestrade nodded "He offered his old farm house for them to film in and they let him watch in person."

John huffed. "Unbelievable."

The DI went on "He showed us where they get the films. It's a site on the deep web. It's got all sorts of security measures in place, but his account is already verified – we have access to all the content now. They do livestreams, we recorded the most recent one." He turned to look at Sherlock. "If you can get anything from the video- anything that could tell us her location… "

Sherlock nodded, understanding now why they wanted him when they seemingly had all the information they needed already.

"They change houses every so often, then? That's how they avoid getting caught?"

"I've got a few officers going through the tapes, apparently it's one house per girl. It's hard to say how long they stay in each location, though."

Sherlock hummed, but he was already retracting into himself, thinking.

"Let's see it" he said almost absentmindedly as he continued to stare into the distance. There was some shuffling inside the room, which he imagined was Lestrade, but soon John's hand was closing around his upper arm and pulling him towards the corner.

He looked up to see they were alone in the room and that his lover was staring worryingly at him.

"Sherlock, " John started, and he didn't look very happy "Are you sure-"

"That's what it was" Sherlock interrupted, shaking his head. A small, disbelieving smile tugging at his lips.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"That's what it was, John. I was right! I knew it!" he announced, looking equal parts relieved and triumphant "They're running a show! It looked like a stage because that's exactly what it was! I-"

But his doctor was raising one hand to stop him mid-sentence. "Sherlock, did you even hear what Greg said?" he asked, his expression serious "I'm glad this isn't some kind of crazy scheme of Moriarty's from beyond the grave- that's great. But that's really not what I'm focusing on right now."

There was a bit of a staring contest between them, then. John refused to be the one to point out the obvious, and Sherlock was way too focused on the good news to want to think about what came next. Eventually, he acquiesced.

"The video" he said, a bit tiredly.

"Yes. Yes, the video."

"What do you want me to say? I have to watch it." The detective argued simply.

John had his mouth closed and expression closed off for a good few seconds, picking his words carefully. "You don't _have_ to. I understand you want to help, but… Sherlock, even I don't want to see it. This… it could be very… " he trailed off.

He half expected Sherlock to shrug his worries off completely, but the detective just looked away for a moment, before nodding. "I know."

John squeezed his hand softly.

"But I have to do this. I couldn't- I can't walk away, not from this one."

"What if you have a panic attack?" John asked seriously, because it was a very real possibility.

"Then you just get me out of there." A pause. "You'll go with me, right-"

"Of course I will, don't be ridiculous." His lover interrupted.

Sherlock smiled, a small tentative thing. "Then I'll be fine. I promise."

John didn't look terribly convinced, but he sighed and nodded "Let's go find Greg, then."

\--

John was positively fidgeting, but he discretely placed his hand on Sherlock's back and ran it up and down soothingly. He was trying to offer his lover support, but honestly needed the connection just as much.

Part of him wanted to grab Sherlock by the hand and run far, far away just as quickly as he could do it. He wanted to shelter his lover and protect him from everything, but god the man was brave. Sherlock was braver than all of them put together and he knew he was the Yard's best bet in finding their killers.

The detective looked at him in a silent thank you; a small smile on his face trying to balance out the heaviness of his shoulders and the fear in his eyes.

John almost, almost reached out to brush their hands together, but caught himself in time.

"Alright, everybody ready?" Lestrade finally said, sounding tired and reluctant. No one was looking forward to seeing it.

There were another three officers in the room aside from himself and Donavan. It was enough people that the small place felt crowded, especially when they were all standing around the computer screen. Sherlock was the one invited to seat in front of it, however.

When someone hit play, the room descended into complete silence.

And then the screams began.

On the screen, there was a room very much like the one at the farm house. It was spacious and mostly empty aside from the dirty mattress on the floor, a bowl and chains. Unlike the farm house's, this room was occupied.

Four men held a screaming, naked girl down as a fifth man walked into view of the camera and knelt by her legs.

"Jesus Christ" Greg murmured under his breath, similar noises echoed by the other people in the room.

Everyone was very pointedly trying to ignore the wailing of the woman in the video, but it very was hard to do so. The men weren't just raping her; they were torturing her at the same time.

"This can't possibly be inside the city. The entire neighborhood would have heard it." Lestrade commented, both to break the ice and to get the ball rolling on observations. They needed to focus on the facts that would lead them to finding the girl's location.

Another officer mentioned something about the light, and the room being at least slightly above ground, but John's attention was completely focused on his lover's face.

Sherlock was pale, his jaw was tense, his hands closed into fists and John could already tell he wasn't breathing as smoothly as he should. It wasn't enough to intervene yet, but it was clear the detective was struggling to keep his eyes on the screen.

In the video, the men had turned their victim around so she was up on her knees, her face down on the mattress as one of them kept her there with his foot. When the man took her again, Sherlock had to stare off to the side for a moment. He knew that position intimately.

For the next full minute, he had to keep himself from looking directly at the screen; he wouldn't last long if he didn't pace himself by looking away.

The girl was turned on her side, and the shift in position cued Sherlock into looking back at the screen. She was flailing as her captors moved her around and didn't leave her with much to hold onto. She tried leaning on her elbow, but one of the men pulled her hand away and she was back to scrambling.

Her loud screams were suddenly replaced by gurgled noises as one of the men took her mouth, and the gagging noises that ensued made Sherlock start to dissociate from the scene.

This dissociating had happened to him before, back in Serbia. He'd check out of reality, because he didn't want to be there for what was happening. His mind was very used to hiding itself away and--

He pointedly widened his eyes and shook his head a bit, trying to call himself back to the real world, the room. Scotland Yard. Case. _Focus_.

His expression must have said something, because John was squeezing his shoulder discreetly, but he just looked right back to the screen, determined.

_Don't watch the video, read the crime scene. Don't watch the video, read the crime scene. Don't watch the video, read the crime scene._

He started chanting in his own head and tried to compartmentalize.

But then the girls' mouth was free once again, and her screams pierced right through him, destabilizing his efforts completely.

"You'd think they'd try and cover her mouth. Even in a secluded area, that much noise…" It was Donovan speaking. If anything, she was trying to lessen the mood somehow with her comment; no one had spoken in minutes and the air in the room had grown heavy and thick with tension.

But Sherlock's brain was wired to counteract incorrect trains of thought, so he immediately replied "The movie would lose half its market value. They want to hear her scream, that's part of what turns them on." He could, perhaps, have said it with less of a bite, too.

"Yeah, you would know, freak." Donovan bit back, annoyed "You get off on it" she added under her breath, but the room was small enough that everyone heard it.

Sherlock tensed. And no one saw when John moved.

One moment the doctor was standing by his partner, and the next he had his hands fisted into the Sergeant's lapels and was shoving the woman up against the wall.

"Say that again!" he ordered.

"John, what the hell are you-"

"Are you mental?!"

"Sir, should I get secur-"

"Oh, god, can we-"

Voices erupted from everyone in the room as people rose to action. The only person who didn't speak or move was Sherlock.

The video was blessedly paused in the commotion, ceasing the screams, at least.

"Hey, cool off! Let her go, right now!" Lestrade ordered. And he didn't put himself between his teammate and friend only because it was physically impossible to do so.

With another shove, John let her go and stepped away, but his posture was all soldier. His nostrils were still flaring and he was still clenching his teeth in anger.

"Have you lost your bloody mind?!" Greg demanded, rounding in on him.

"Have _I_ lost my mind?!" John yelled back, and he was so angry. "Are you deaf? Did you hear what she just said?"

Lestrade sighed tiredly "Yes, I did. I try to tune out their bickering-"

"Bickering?!"

"John-" Sherlock started, but the doctor wasn't having it.

He felt the anger bubble up in his throat and he started trembling with the effort to not punch someone in the face or kick the nearest chair off into the wall. "You know what? We're done here." He said, voice low and cutting

"Wait- what-" Lestrade started, spluttering.

But John had his jaw locked and he only opened his mouth long enough to look at his partner and say "Come on, Sherlock. We're going." And it was his military, no-nonsense voice.

The young detective rose from his seat almost tentatively and walked towards his lover like he didn't know what else to do. Truthfully, he could feel his blood pressure had plummeted and he was extremely dizzy.

"You're not serious, are you? The investigation! John- Sherlock, come on-" the DI reasoned behind them even as they left without even looking back.

As soon as they were out of sight, Greg groaned in frustration and turned to look at his befuddled team. "Are you happy now?!" he barked at Donovan, dropping his files angrily onto the table.

\--

"What do you want me to do?!" Sally complained as she was obligated to follow her boss.

"You're going to apologize and you're going to mean it, because we're not wasting this lead." Lestrade said very matter-of-factly.

"It's not anything I haven't said before, I don't know why-" she started, but the DI cut her off.

"Well, then maybe you should stop saying it. Sherlock has… feelings too." He told her, even as the words felt very strange in his mouth. She looked at him with her nose scrunched up. "Oh, shut up. He does." He insisted.

They were walking in quick strides, making their way across the floor and out the door of the Yard, hoping they would still catch the two men. And just as they left the station they spotted John and Sherlock on the other side of the street, waiting for a cab.

Originally, Greg had the full intention of chasing after them, but what he saw made both he and Sally stop in their tracks.

John stood in front of Sherlock, his hand raised and placed gently on the taller man's face. The detective was leaning down and into the touch, his gloved hand coming up to cover John's own. They seemed to be talking, their heads pressed close together almost as if-

"Oh my god" Sally exclaimed next to him, startling Greg back into reality.

Right before their eyes, they saw the two men close the distance between each other and share a very intimate and chaste kiss. It was barely a brush of the lips, but it was clearly something they had done before.

"Oh my god" Sally exclaimed again, turning around like she couldn't look directly at the scene. "Oh my god. The freak-"

"Sally" Greg admonished immediately, but he too had to look away. He suddenly felt like a voyeur and wanted to be anywhere but there.

"Still want to go after them, boss?" the Sargent quipped, and she looked smug.

"What are you grinning about, I'm still making you apologize" he told her very pointedly, running a hand up and down his short hair.

Another glance at the two on the other side of the street showed that Sherlock had just managed to summon a cab. Great.

"Baker Street it is" He told his DS, gesturing broadly towards their police car.

\--

"That would be Lestrade" Sherlock said simply. As he looked out the window and saw the car pulling up across the street. "And Donovan" he added just as nonchalantly when he saw the woman exit the car first.

"Oh that's just perfect. What is _she_ doing here?" John grumbled from the kitchen, placing two mugs down on the counter with much more force than necessary.

"What do you think?" his lover countered, even as they heard steps coming up the stairs. And before the two detectives could make it to their door Sherlock looked at his partner "John, can you just-"

"No. Not this time, no." And he came out of the kitchen like a soldier stepping into battle. He gave Sherlock his mug and placed his own forcefully on the side table before turning towards the door just in time to see Lestrade and Sally Donovan come in.

The DI started almost comically, stopping in his tracks as to not run the doctor over. "John!" he said as he exhaled.

John crossed his arms over his chest.

"John, mate," Lestrade said again, and it was a mixture of pleading and exasperation. "Sherlock?" He turned to plead to the man himself when his blogger didn't seem terribly inclined to let them in.

"Lestrade" Sherlock raised his mug at him in a mock greeting, but took a seat on his chair, completely unwilling to participate.

"Ok, look mates, this- this just got out of hand, alright? Sally didn't-" he looked back at the sergeant, urging her to step forward and say her piece. "She didn't mean that"

But the woman didn't look terribly apologetic even as she drawled lazily "I'm sorry I said you get off on snuff films."

Lestrade cleared his throat pointedly.

She didn't even refrain from rolling her eyes. "And for calling you a freak."

John huffed, shaking his head in disbelief.

He walked up and into the woman's personal space to the point that Lestrade readied himself to jump in between them.

"You think this is funny, don't you?" He asked, and he was riling himself up pretty quick, so he just turned around and went towards his own chair, but didn't sit down. "Should have saved yourself the trip" he said, and it was a dismissal if ever Sherlock had heard one.

Lestrade was getting really tired with the back and forth, and he let his frustration out as he addressed the two "Look, there are women being kidnapped and tortured to death in a basement somewhere, ok? Can we just be grownups and move on? We have a case to solve and no offense John but that's more important than Donavan calling Sherlock names, alright?"

John looked at him for a good few seconds "Can I remind you of something, here? _You_ need _him_ and not the other way around." He enunciated "You obviously don't think there's anything wrong with your team treating him like shite. So why are you here?"

"They're not trea-"

"Are you _mental_? She literally said-" John actually couldn't bring himself to repeat it. To say the words _Sherlock gets off on rape_ because of how vile they sounded. And it baffled him that the DI thought nothing of it. "She was one of the people who sided with Moriarty last time, have you forgotten that already? Sherlock is a psychopath? Let's arrest him and make him jump off a roof?!"

"He didn't actually jump-" this time it was Sally who spoke up, rolling her eyes again.

"No, no, he did much more than sodding jump off a bloody roof, you have no fucking idea-"

"John" Sherlock's voice was steady, but firm, and the doctor had to grit his teeth to stop  himself from talking.

The two detectives looked at him, almost having forgotten he was still there. And the sudden focus made both Yarders look at Sherlock properly for the first time. The man wasn't wearing his signature gloves. But more importantly, he was holding a mug in both of his obviously mutilated hands.

The subsequent silence and Greg's taken aback expression left no doubt that both of them had seen it.

Once he realized it, Sherlock's entire demeanor changed and he stood up sharply, leaving his mug behind and shoving his hands into his pockets. "Great, well, everybody's said their piece, now you can all leave." His voice was falsely courteous and his blank face left little room for an argument.

"Sherlock, I-" Greg started, his voice faltering.

"GET OUT. NOW." The younger man shouted.

The two had no choice but to reluctantly walk out, the door slamming behind them courtesy of John.

Then the doctor turned around slowly, his mouth opening in a soft "Sherlock-"

"No." was the immediate, snapped response he got from his lover. And then the detective was walking into their bedroom and closing the door pointedly behind himself.

"Great, fucking great!" John bit out to no one as he kicked the chair near him.

\--

_Sherlock._

_Sherlock, I'm sorry._

_We're all sorry. Sally's sorry._

_We need you. Please?_

_Sherlock, the case._

The messages kept coming, but he refused to answer them.

After a couple of hours, he had unlocked himself from the bedroom and allowed John entry. He didn't want to alienate his lover, but he was not in a talking mood. So he went out into the living room, picked up his neglected violin and started to play a song that came out just as mutilated as he was.

John had sat and listened for hours as the notes came out, completely garbled, a shadow of the song they had once been. It was painful to listen, and not because the notes were wrong, but because of the pained expression on Sherlock's face.

Eventually, the man stopped. It looked like someone had cut his strings loose, because Sherlock just sagged. His arms went limp at his sides, the violin drifting to the floor, the bow pointing downwards in defeat.

"Sherlock?" John prodded, putting his book down on his lap.

For a moment it honestly looked like the detective was about to hurl the violin across the room, but then he just let it fall onto the ground. His eyes were red when he finally looked up at John.

"I can't stop thinking about it." He said, finally.

John let his book, tea and blanket behind, and crossed the distance between them. He offered his hand up, gently, quietly. And Sherlock melted into him, hiding his face on the crook of his neck.

"Let's just go to sleep" The detective mumbled into his skin and John nodded, kissing his curls.

The night that followed was one of the worse since their return to Baker Street. Sherlock had nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. And, unsurprisingly, it culminated in a panic attack so great that John had to give him medication to calm him back down.

They ended up both awake and exhausted at four in the morning, sat in their tangled sheets and damp bed. Sherlock had a glass of cool water in his hands, his head up against the wall and the eyes of a sleep deprived man.

"I'll just go lie down on the couch. You go to sleep, John." He said after a good five minutes, moving to get off their bed.

"No. I'm not leaving you alone like this."

"I'm not going to get any sleep tonight. You staying up is not going to change that. There's no reason why both of us should stay awake."

John was quiet for a bit and then he scooted closer to his partner before speaking. "You asked me to marry you."

Sherlock frowned. "What?"

"You asked me to marry you. In sickness and in health, 'till death do us part. Don't tell me you deleted that too? Wedding vows?" he was teasing, but it earned him the smallest smile from his detective.

"Well, we're not married yet." The man countered, hiding his smile behind the water glass as he took a sip.

"Hmm. When _are_ you planning to make an honest man out of me, Sherlock Holmes?" John prodded, as he moved on the bed so he was sat right next to his fiancé.

The question was taken as the distraction it was meant to be and soon they were talking increasingly absurd wedding scenarios that neither would ever agree to.

It was six in the morning when, finally, the exhausted detective felt his eyelids start drooping. He snuggled close to his army doctor, who was also half asleep, and hid his face into the man's neck. "When the case is done. We'll do it then."

John nodded, humming in agreement. Then he wrapped his arm over his lover's back and they drifted into much needed sleep.

\--

"I can't bring it over to Baker Street, it's evidence! Ask for anything else, come on" Lestrade pleaded, feeling like he was walking on thin ice.

The strike against Scotland Yard had only lasted till noon the next day, when Sherlock and John had woken up from their horribly fragmented sleep. Both of them knew that, regardless of John's anger and Sherlock's trauma, the detective was going to see this case through.

But now things were going to be done on his terms.

"Fine, Graham, then get rid of all your watch dogs, and I'll watch the video on my own." Sherlock said, then.

He'd never had any intention to watch it at Baker Street – it'd have felt sacrilegious – but asking for that first and then working his way up to what he actually wanted seemed like a safe bet.

There was silence on the other side of the line and then Lestrade responded "Alright, alright. I'll get us a room, just the three of us then."

"No. Me and John. Alone."

He heard the long, drawn out frustrated sigh coming from the policeman before the man finally acquiesced. "Fine. Now please come?"

"The Yard's paying for our cab" Sherlock informed him as a way of accepting the terms, and then proceeded to hang up the phone.

He looked up to see John coming over with two platefuls of beans, toast and sausage. One of the plates was placed before him, and John nodded to it.

"Eat and then we can go." He was clearly still very sour about the whole thing.

Sherlock was no longer allowed to waive food while he was on a case; he didn't even bother trying anymore. _Besides_ , he thought as he put the first forkful into his mouth, he loved John's cooking.

He gave his lover a forced, fake smile and pointed to his breakfast-eating-self. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic" was the doctor's reply right before the man dug into his own food.

"So… he going to let us watch it by ourselves, then?" John prompted after a while.

Sherlock nodded. "Oh, and he also said you're not allowed to punch Donovan in the face."

"I'm not going to…" was the mumbled reply.

"You punched the Chief Superintendent last time" Sherlock pointed out, matter-of-factly.

John opened his mouth, tried to think of something to say, realized he actually didn't have a defense for that, and just shut it again.

"Alright, I won't punch Donovan in the face."

\--

They were given a wide berth when they entered the Yard. Either word of their altercation had flown to everybody, or Lestrade had made sure to tell people to be on their best behavior. Whichever the case, they saw neither hide nor hair of Donovan as they were escorted to a small interrogation room.

The laptop was placed before them, and Lestrade looked almost pained to let it go.

"We have another stream from yesterday." He said as the thing came to life. "Anything, ok? Write down anything you can think of." He placed a pad of paper and a pen by Sherlock's right hand and then proceeded to stare at said right hand profusely before Sherlock turned to glare at him.

"Right. Well, I'll leave you to it, then."

\--

It was hours upon hours. They were watching the livestream while going through the saved catalog all at the same time, and John wasn't sure whether the multiple screens were helping or not; they did make the whole thing seem unreal.

Sherlock soldiered through and all John did was fetch him more coffee and squeeze his hand when he seemed too overwhelmed.

At some point the detective got up, hands ruffling his own hair, and let out a mewl of frustration.

John, who had moved to the floor and accidentally fallen asleep, jolted upright. When he looked up to see Sherlock standing, the last of his sleepiness drained out of him.

"Hey, are you ok?" he asked, clearing his throat. His hand felt for his jacket's pocket and something crinkled beneath his fingers; he'd brought Sherlock's emergency meds, just in case.

The taller man sighed and dropped down next to him. "I'm tired"

"Come here" John opened his arms and nodded to his lap.

Sherlock obliges, placing his head on John's lap and facing away from the paused screen. He curls in on himself and sighs heavily when he feels John's fingers in his hair.

They stay in silence for a little while, but eventually John's fingers still and he speaks again "Maybe we should wrap up for tonight"

A grumble comes from the curled detective and John knows it for the negative it is.

After a while, the head of curls move and Sherlock looks up at him "If we go home, I'll just be awake there instead of here. There's no point."

Before the Fall, before everything, Sherlock wouldn't have bothered to give him an explanation. It made him think, sometimes, how far they'd come.

"Ok" he paused "What if we just take a break? Get some fresh air?"

"I don't want to"

John sighed, rubbed his eyes tiredly and then resumed running his hands through Sherlock's curls.

"Are you upset?" he prompted after another couple of minutes.

"I'm upset I haven't gotten to the end of this already." The detective said curtly, but at the same time he shifted closer to John's warmth.

"I just- I have your meds. If you want them." He offered quietly.

"I know" the detective replied after a while. "You keep them in your left pocket ever since that incident with the tourists."

"And of course, you know that." John shook his head, but smiled nonetheless.

During one of their strolls around the city, they had passed a couple of men – tourists – who were animatedly talking to each other and pointing to their map of London. It had been in the earlier days of Sherlock's recovery, and most importantly, the men had been speaking Serbian.

It was one of the most terrifying panic attacks John had ever seen. That the poor men saw Sherlock gasping for breath in John's arms and tried to help only made things worse. There was a lot of yelling involved, and John almost phoned an ambulance. When they finally made it home, the detective hid in the bathtub of all places and stayed there for over an hour with hot water running down his face.

"They would just slow down my thinking process" Sherlock said, bringing John out of his memory.

"Can't have that" John smiled, shaking his head again. "Sherlock Holmes, with the mind that's like an engine, a train racing out of control, trapped on the launch pad!" he teased, echoing the words his lover had said on many occasions.

He'd said it to try to lighten the mood, but Sherlock froze in his arms.

The next moment the detective was sitting up so fast his head almost collided with John's jaw. He stared at the doctor wide eyed for a couple of seconds and then he jumped onto his feet.

"That's it! That's it, John!" he exclaimed, pulling his chair out and sitting down. "You're brilliant!"

John had no idea why he was brilliant this time, but he stood up anyway and looked over his lover's shoulder to the screen.

"Do you see! These are all consistent with underground facilities, and I knew it had to be industrial storage- it's clearly not a basement. I showed you these marks before, the light had to swing on the ceiling, that's why the wire is falling out in this exact pattern. But we have those windows on top and they don't lead to the outside- it's concrete and-"

"Sherlock, will you- what are you trying to get at?" it was four in the morning and John wasn't sure his brain was working properly anymore.

"I thought it was a train track! From the start, it felt like a train track, the tubes, anything."

John remembered that, so he nodded "But they would have been caught, if that were the case."

"Not just that, John. We've seen idiots make worse mistakes before." He pointed to the windows in the still of the screen "There were no shadows from the train. The lightbulb didn't swing and there was no sound, so I dismissed it. But _The train is trapped in the launch pad._ " he looked back at John "Because it's a deactivated station."

"But- there aren't any…"

"That's the whole point. They're not in London anymore" The detective said, standing up from his seat in a rush.

\--

Lestrade had never woken up so fast in his life.

He had his team ready to go in five, and Sherlock was leading them in like he couldn't sit still for a second.

Once they had established the possible locations versus the amount of time the kidnappers had needed to arrive, finding their abandoned station was a matter of minutes.

The group that stormed into the site was heavily armed and many in numbers. They spread out to cover the most ground; there were dozens of tunnels and spaces under the station, and even Sherlock wasn't sure where to start.

John and he kept close to Lestrade and his team, so they all saw the shadow moving at the exact same time.

A man ran out from behind one of the pillars and was making a break for the tunnel ahead.

John, closest as he was, didn't think twice before dashing head first into the dark figure and jumping on his legs. "I've got him!" he yelled, as he trapped the guy face down into the dirt, and the man's hands in a military grip.

And then there were two gunshots.

John widened his eyes and instinctively searched for Sherlock in the darkened corridor, but he couldn't see much from his vantage point.

Lestrade and Donovan had jogged up to him and knelt down, trying to help with restraining the struggling man beneath him.

"Where's Sherlock?"

"Ran off." Donovan said.

John looked at her with a closed expression and she looked away.

Lestrade looked from one to the other, feeling the tension between them. Then he shook his head "He ran when we heard the bullets."

"You mean he ran _towards_ the bullets." John corrected as the man squirming underneath him was finally handcuffed.

Lestrade made a sympathetic face "He wasn't hit or anything. But yeah, he's gone tracking them down. You know how he is, 's like a bloodhound"

\--

Out of all the scenarios Sherlock had imagined when he first heard the gunshots, this one was probably the last on his list.

His mind had gone off a mile a minute, making calculations and tracing the ricocheting sounds of the bullets back to one of the rooms bellow. But when he threw the door open, the body he saw on the floor wasn't that of a girl.

One of the men from the video was lying motionless on the ground, blood flowing from a wound Sherlock couldn't see. And the girl- the girl was naked, cuffed at her feet and aiming a gun at him.

"Stay back!!!" she shouted, tears streaming down her face. She was trembling and sobbing, even though she was the armed one.

Sherlock immediately lifted both his hands in surrender and took a small step back, studying the situation the best he could. It was obvious that the unexpected arrival of the police had sent the kidnappers into a panicked run. The one on the floor hadn't been so lucky.

Turning back to the girl, he recalled the name in her missing person's file and spoke in the softest voice he could manage. "Amanda, I'm with the police. I'm here to help you."

"No! Don't move!!" she yelled again when he so much as twitched.

"Listen, I'm just here to help you-"

"Give me the keys!" she demanded, ignoring him. "Give them to me or I'll shoot you!!"

"I don't have the keys" he told her calmly, still holding his hands up. "But I will get you out of here, just let me call-"

"No! No!" she sobbed, her face red "No, I won't…" she trailed off, crying, her shaking hands still holding the gun in Sherlock's direction.

"Will you let me show you something? I'm just going to take my gloves off." He moved his hands very, very slowly. "I'm not going to do anything else, will you let me do that?"

Amanda was shaking, her blue eyes completely bloodshot, but there was a slight glimmer of hope in them. She wanted to believe him.

"I'll shoot you." She threatened, but this time, it was clear she meant that she'd shoot him if he lied to her.

"Just going to take my gloves off" he assured, and started to do so very slowly.

Once they were dropped on the floor, Sherlock flexed his fingers slightly and still kept his palms up in surrender. "What they did to you, they did the same thing to me." He explained, showing her his mutilated hands. "I'm only trying to help you, please, believe me."

He could see the moment she faltered, her frightened eyes softening the tiniest bit as his words reached her.

"Do you want my coat? I can give it to you." he offered, because when he'd been in her place, his blanket had been the most comforting thing he'd had.

She was still sizing him up, her mouth shut, trembling. Her nostrils flared in determination as her tears slowed down. "Kick it here." She ordered. "Don't do anything funny. I'll shoot you."

Despite her threats, Sherlock knew she was warming up to him. He nodded, and slowly took off his Belstaff, making sure not to touch any of its pockets.

The wool coat fell behind him and he stepped to the side before kicking it across the floor towards her.

"Don't move." She ordered, keeping her eyes locked on his and her gun aimed at him as she snatched the coat like a snake and slowly put one hand through each sleeve, while holding the gun with the other.

Once she was dressed, she seemed to calm down significantly, and Sherlock counted it as a win.

And then his phone started ringing.

"Don't!! Don't pick it up!" She shouted immediately, completely set back by the new potential threat.

"Ok, ok. I won't" he said, his arms still raised in surrender.

"Give it to me." She ordered "Give it to me, now!"

"It's in my back pocket." He told her clearly "I'm going to reach for it, and then I'll kick it over to you." he narrated, shifting a bit so she could see he wasn't hiding a gun.

His mobile kept ringing and it was, of course, John. He dutifully didn't answer, and just kicked it over to her as promised.

She hungrily reached for it, immediately denied the call and dialed 999. Sobbing and almost screaming, she told the operator that she'd been kidnapped and that she didn't know where she was-

Sherlock rattled off the address, and explained the exact room they were in; if they were going to have to wait for an entirely different crew to arrive and retrieve them, might as well give them the correct directions.

She was startled at his voice, but relayed the information all the while telling the operator that she didn't trust the man standing in front of her.

\--

"Who's John?" she asked, because his lover wouldn't stop calling.

She had calmed down a bit after her call, and by this time she had already lowered her gun.

"He's my partner." He said "As in we're getting married, not as in we work together. Although, I suppose we also do." He clarified "He's walking up and down the station, looking for us."

She looked up towards the ceiling, mimicking him. But when she looked back at him, he could see her walls had almost entirely come down. He should have lead with that, he thought. His relationship with John automatically made him seem less threatening.

It shouldn't. The men who'd raped him in Serbia had been straight, for the most part. Sexuality didn't matter in these things, did it?

After a while, she sat down, gun still in hand, but almost forgotten. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them.

"What happened to you?" she asked, nodding towards him, his hands.

He smiled the tiniest bit and sat down, too, leaning against the wall.

"The same thing that happened to you." a pause "Just a long time ago."

She kept stealing glances, but mostly didn't move from her spot.

"Amanda" Sherlock nudged, after a couple of minutes had passed. "Scotland Yard is already here, they came with me. But if you don't let me talk to them, they're not going to get to us."

She shook her head, but it was half-hearted. "If you're one of them, you're just going to bring more of you-"

"If I was one of them, why would I need to tell the others where I am? Wouldn't they already know their own hiding place?"

Her chin trembled a bit and her eyes stung again at the prospect of this man really being her rescuer.

Saying nothing, she unlocked his phone and hesitated, her fingers nervously hovering over the icons on the screen.

The background picture was of a sandy-haired man smiling at the camera. He had a green jumper over a button-up shirt and one hand sticking out as though he had taken the picture himself.

"Is this John?" she asked, showing Sherlock the image.

"Yes." The detective couldn't help a small smile. "There are pictures of us on the phone, if you want to verify what I told you."

She clicked on the icon for the reel, and the first picture that came up was of a document of sorts. She flipped through that, and the next one was of her companion, sitting on an armchair and working on a laptop. After that was a series of pictures that all looked nearly identical, both men were in the frame, but the crop was so up close that you couldn't see much of their surroundings.

She stopped when she arrived at a picture that had obviously been taken at Christmas, and by a third party. The two men were dressed in absurd sweaters and were sharing a chaste kiss, the barest hint of a mistletoe peeking from the top of the frame.

"My mother insisted on that one." Sherlock told her, because he could deduce the picture she was looking at by the shades of red reflecting onto her face.

Amanda looked up at him and her eyes were teary.

"Will you let me call him? So we can both get out of here?" he prodded again.

Her chin was wobbling again and a couple of tears ran down her face, but then she finally nodded. She offered the phone to him, but didn't move from her spot on the floor.

"Thank you." was all he said, after approaching her to retrieve his phone.

Immediately, he dialed his lover, all urgency returning to him. "John?" he called out as soon as the call connected. "I found her."

\--

"Police!" a voice yelled just from outside.

The door burst open, startling both occupants of the room. And then a swarm of black-clad policemen holding rifles flooded the place, followed by Lestrade and his team.

"Sherlock!" John called, jogging over to him as soon as he spotted him near the back wall. "Are you ok?!" he asked, looking the detective up and down, as he held onto the man's forearms.

Sherlock nodded, but then looked back to where their victim was still sat on the floor, overwhelmed by the commotion despite her relief.

"She's got cuffs on her feet." He told the doctor, and John nodded before disappearing off to fetch one of the goons from the fire department.

When Sherlock looked back at the girl, Sally Donovan was crouched in front of her, already taking charge of the situation. His job here was done.

He started to walk away from them, only to hear a sharp "Wait!" from behind.

Amanda was looking straight up at him, her red eyes looking slightly panicked "Don't go."

Donovan was frowning between them, but was smart enough not to say anything.

"Can you stay with me? Please."

He opened his mouth, caught completely off guard. Then he looked around and at Donovan, before nodding and sliding back to the floor to sit right across from her.

"Alright"

\--

It took days to track down the rest of the Snuff Films Gang, but one of the two members they had in custody was more than willing to spill the beans in exchange for leniency. It also helped that he had almost died at the hand of his victim and was a bit drugged at the moment of his statement.

Sherlock and John had mostly retreated after the bust at the abandoned station; it was all up to the Yard to do the clean-up now. Lestrade did text them here and there to update them on the current arrests, but for the most part, they were left alone.

Which is why Sherlock found it so strange to be summoned to the Yard a few days later.

"What's this about?" he asked Lestrade once the man came out of his office to greet the two of them.

The policeman was fidgeting a bit, his mouth forming around words that he didn't really speak.

Sherlock's frown deepened.

"Well, ah. There're some people from the media who want to talk to you." he shifted uncomfortably again "You know, hero of the hour and all that."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, remembering the media circus that all his cases became after the Reichenbach Painting debacle. But before he could say anything, John nudged him with his shoulder and shrugged.

"Just go, come on. You deserve the recognition, you know?"

He sighed, and decided to just march on "Fine."

The conference room was filled with reporters and officers alike. It was the same annoying, loud, sensationalist spectacle as all the times previous. The only difference was the reaction of the Yarders who had actually been working on the case with him.

Donovan and several other officers stood apart from the crowd. The usual amusement they'd have on their faces was missing; they looked rather serious, as though this was some kind of solemn ceremony.

After the whole thing was done and the media blinded John and Sherlock with their excessive flashes, both men were subtlety escorted out of the room by Lestrade.

"That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

No, it hadn't been. But still, Sherlock dutifully sighed and murmured "Dull. Can we go now, John?" he asked, turning to his partner.

But then Lestrade was clearing his throat and looking around a bit before turning his gaze back to them. "Actually, there's someone else who'd like to see you."

Both men frowned at him. "Who?" John prompted.

"Amanda wanted to be here, but she's still at the hospital. She asked if you wouldn't mind paying her a visit."

Sherlock's mouth twitched at that, and his eyes visibly softened despite his efforts to keep a poker face. "Well, you've already got us out of the flat, might as well."

That should have settled that, but the older detective was still fidgeting in front of him. Clearly, there was something still unspoken.

"Oh, god! What, Lestrade? Just spit it out!" Sherlock demanded, annoyed. He couldn't help but notice that some of the Yard's officers had also left the conference and were lingering around them like a group of uncertain stray cats.

The DI looked back towards his co-workers, down to the floor, and then to John and Sherlock again.

"Listen, Sherlock, ahm. We just, ah, you know that we were monitoring the live streams?" he started, and the younger man stiffened immediately.

He knew exactly where this was going.

"So we, ah, we overheard what you told Amanda."

Sherlock closed his eyes momentarily. Somewhere in the Yard's bowels now lay a video of him taking gloves off his mutilated hands and telling a kidnapped rape victim that _they had done it to him too_.

Perfect. Brilliant. Just what he needed, really.

"I know you haven't told us officially, but we're all happy for you."

What?

Sherlock was frowning as much as John was, and Lestrade faltered at their expressions.

"You _were_ serious right? The two of you- you _are_ getting married?"

 _Oh_. That.

"We kind of, ah, misplaced the rescue tape." Lestrade continued, clearing his throat, his hands in his pockets and looking anything but casual "So, no one can really watch it again to be sure."

"You misplaced it?" Sherlock echoed.

"Yep"

"Just that one tape?"

Lestrade shrugged "The blokes from evidence- you know how it is"

The blokes from evidence were the only competent people in the Yard. Sherlock knew, because it was a challenge to steal things from them.

He smiled. "Right"

The three of them were quiet, standing there a bit awkwardly as they tried to ignore the unspoken words they all knew to be there.

Finally, John cleared his throat and puffed out his chest a bit "Yes. That is- yes. We're getting married." He said, closing the case on their silent topic.

In the back of his mind, Sherlock registered that this was the first time John had come out to someone about their relationship or the implications thereof on his sexuality. He wasn't sure if what he felt at that was pride, but it was something akin to it.

"Good, that's good. Because we, ahm-" Lestrade fumbled a bit with his suit pocket and retrieve an envelope from it. "Here" he offered it to the both of them.

Sherlock was the one to take it in his gloved hand. And despite his usual knack for figuring out gifts, he couldn't venture a guess as to what he was holding.

"It's a wedding gift, from us – we all chipped in." Lestrade said, a bit awkward, as he looked back to the rest of the lurking team. "You destroyed the last one, so."

It honestly sounded like they were getting him a replacement deerstalker, but when Sherlock opened the envelope it was to find a picture of a solid wooden table.

Made of a dark, rich wood, it was beautifully crafted – Sherlock would say hand carved, even. Decorative patterns ran in relief all across the edges and all the way down to its intricate feet. It was very posh, almost Victorian-like; very Sherlock, really.

Their old kitchen table had literally fallen to pieces after one of Sherlock's experiments exploded. John spent days brooding over the table, while Sherlock had spent days brooding over his lost chemistry set.

The next photo he flipped through wasn't of a table. There was a collection of very clearly antique vials and beakers and lab equipment-

"The guys from forensics picked those out." Lestrade spoke, breaking the trance that both John and Sherlock had fallen into.

On the background, said forensics people waved timidly at them.

"I checked with your brother, too. We wanted to pick something you'd like." The DI rambled on.

Sherlock was blinking at the carefully picked out, thoughtful gifts, and his throat closed up. After a beat, he cleared it and finally looked up at the policemen in front of him.

"This is very…" he started, then cleared his throat "We-"

"He means to say thank you." John interrupted, though he was just as taken aback. "I- it's really thoughtful, Greg."

His words, spoken directly to Lestrade, lead to an unspoken exchange between the two; John forgave him for not sticking up for Sherlock earlier on the case.

"Well I'm glad you like it, because it's being brought over to your flat as we speak." The DI added, breaking the tension a little bit.

John laughed and even Sherlock chuckled, putting the envelope away in his pocket.

"Congratulations. We mean it." And then he patted both men on the back, before straightening his suit and nodding "Alright. Well, shall we get going? I told Amanda we'd meet her at the hospital at four."

\--

The ride to the hospital was incredibly uncomfortable due to the unexpected presence of Sally Donovan.

Sure, she had been lurking in the background with all the other we-all-chipped-in gift-givers, but there was still no love lost between her and Sherlock. There was a lot between her and John, none of which was remotely pleasant.

Still, a gloved hand rested on the Doctor's knees as a plea to _not get into it right now_ , and they spent the whole car ride in tense silence.

When they arrived at the hospital and piled out of the police car, however, Sally lagged behind.

"Sherlock," she called out, her voice uncharacteristically tentative.

Both the detective and his doctor stopped in their tracks to look back at her. John looked very unfriendly, with his arms crossed over his chest, and one step ahead of his lover like a bodyguard.

But Sherlock glanced at him and then back at the woman, before nodding towards Lestrade. "You go ahead, John. I'll be right there."

The doctor, soldier, lingered for a few seconds more, staring Donovan down like a challenge. Then he turned around, ran his fingers across Sherlock's own and followed Lestrade into the building.

"Sally" Sherlock replied belatedly with fake pleasantness.

The proud sergeant stepped forward and away from the car, looking down at her feet before finally being able to face the detective.

"I shouldn't have said those things about you. I'm sorry." She said, straight to the point. Despite her cool demeanor, it was very clear her words were sincere and unprompted.

She looked away from him again, put her hands in her pocket and paused pointedly before continuing "I don't know anything about your life. And even though you get under my skin sometimes, that doesn't make you a psychopath. And I'm sorry I called you a freak. You're not. You're just… smarter than all of us."

He stood there looking positively befuddled, glancing between her and the people walking around them. He had no idea what to do with himself or what to say. He even tried to open his mouth a couple of times to form some kind of reply, but none would come.

Donovan cleared her throat "Right, well, that's what I had to say, so." And then she gestured vaguely towards the hospital, before starting to make her way to the doors.

Sherlock still couldn't find something to say in reply, but as he followed her, the sergeant spoke again.

"So, you and Johh, huh?"

It was an attempt at casualness that came out as unnatural as small talk was between them, but she was trying.

"Yep, me and John."

"When's the wedding…?"

"We haven't set a date yet." He answered thoughtfully, as they rounded onto the main corridor. And by the time they reached Amanda Walsh's room, he was honest to god having something akin to a conversation with Sally Donovan.

\--

The detectives let them visit Amanda by themselves. John had actually faltered at the door, unsure if he was welcomed in, but the girl on the bed saw them both and opened a smile.

"Sherlock!"

She had positively imprinted on him after the rescue. Before her, Sherlock couldn't recall ever staying to see to a victim's wellbeing, and he didn't think he ever would again. He had spent hours with her at the hospital on that first night, until her parents were able to fly in from Australia last minute. Really, it wasn't surprising that she'd want to see him again.

"Is this John?" She asked, nodding to the doctor lurking behind him.

"I, err, can wait outside" John replied automatically, halfway out the door.

"Yes, obviously" Sherlock answered at the same time. "Come, John, she wants to meet you."

Amanda was smiling a bit shyly at him "We talked a lot about you, that day. You're sort of the reason why I didn't shoot him, to be honest." She admitted sheepishly.

John let out a startled laugh.

"I'm glad you didn't, I've only got one of him"

Her answering smile was a bit boyish and for the first time Sherlock noticed she was sporting a brand new pixie cut.

"The hair" he gestured vaguely towards her, his bare hands in plain sight. "It's different."

She lifted her hand toward it, almost as if she had forgotten about it. "Yeah, I got it cut. Needed a change, you know?"

Sherlock's eyes crinkled and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly "It suits you."

They spent the next half hour chatting; well, Amanda talked, Sherlock listened, and John stared at him like he was falling in love all over again. It was rare to see Sherlock being so openly empathetic to another human being.

When Lestrade came to fetch them, Sherlock let John go ahead and stayed behind as Amanda pulled on his sleeve.

"It'll get better, won't it?" she asked, looking much less cheerful than she had the whole time they'd been there.

He glanced towards the door, beyond which lay the man who stuck with him through it all, through thick and thin and death and back. Then he looked back at her hopeful, frightened face and smiled.

"It'll get so, so much better."

She grinned and let him go, biting her lip softly as he went.

"You'll invite me to your wedding, won't you!" she shouted when he was already at the door.

"Oh course. Bridal party and everything." he winked and she was left laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed it! =)  
> I'm not one for case fics, but this one kind of just happened.  
> There is an epilogue coming so I can wrap this up forever!


	2. Epilogue

He kissed Sherlock's neck, nuzzling softly as they enjoyed the hot water hitting their skin. Droplets would fall from Sherlock's curls, landing on John's nose and he almost wanted to lick them away.

His hands roamed up and down the detective's thighs, and Sherlock tilted his head back, giving him more access to his neck.

The younger man's back was pressed flushed against him, and John's cock already started to pulse in interest.

In an uncharacteristic move, Sherlock arched ever so slightly so that he pointedly brushed against his lover's erection.

He could feel himself grow hard at feeling John's hot skin pressing behind him. He knew what he wanted – it was a desire that came so naturally – and he also knew he wasn't afraid to try anymore. Just thinking about it, just the prospect of it, made him bite his bottom lip and made his breath speed up.

He arched again, more deliberately this time, and it cued John into rubbing himself softly against him. But this time, Sherlock also reached for his lover's left hand and interlaced their fingers in a loving gesture. With his head tilted back as it still was, he softly said John's name.

The doctor hummed in response, starting to kiss the sensitive skin behind the taller man's ear.

"I want you." Sherlock said simply.

He could feel as John paused behind him "You have me" the doctor replied just as matter-of-factly as he placed a kiss as punctuation on the detective's shoulder.

And then he moved as though to swap their positions, but Sherlock stopped him by holding onto his arm.

"Not like that"

The implication was there, but it had been almost two years since their relationship started and Sherlock had never shown any hint that he wanted to cross that particular line. It was reasonable to be unsure of it.

"Like what, then?" he asked, his voice coming out husky.

Sherlock didn't say anything. He kept his hand on John's own as he leaned a bit so he could rest his forehead against the cool tiles of the bath. His back was still flush with his lover's chest as he pulled him closer, and John went with very little resistance.

Tentatively, John trailed his free hand up Sherlock's thigh and followed a path to his back and then down his spine, feeling the younger man shiver under his touch. When his hand stopped at the detective's tailbone, it was a question.

There was no opposition; Sherlock tilted his hips the tiniest bit, leaning into the fingers, and John trailed them down to cross a line he never thought he'd cross.

When there was still no protest, he trailed his fingers between Sherlock's cheeks, and then dipped down to brush against his entrance.

There was a gasp from the detective, but it was clearly not a bad one, so John grew more encouraged. He kept running the tips of his fingers up and down his lover's skin, past his entrance to his perineum to the base of his balls and then back. He never breached him, just felt around, exploring, as his lover arched into his touch.

"Let's go to bed" Sherlock said, his voice barely there, barely a whisper.

\--

Armed with lube, things were very different. John squeezed an exaggerated amount onto his hand and made the same path he'd done before, coating the outside of his lover's entrance all the way up to his balls and then back. It turned sloppy and messy, but Sherlock seemed to be enjoying it.

The lube warmed up and by the time John experimentally dipped the tip of his finger into him, his lover was already completely relaxed.

It was slow and dragged out, but it was done skillfully, and Sherlock grew harder the more it went on. When John finally put one of his fingers in, the detective felt no discomfort whatsoever. In fact, the whole thing was so extraordinarily different that his brain didn't even know to make the connection between the act and what'd been done to him in Serbia.

Two fingers in, more lube, three fingers in, and Sherlock even found himself rocking onto the intrusion. That John would often remove his fingers to let them play with his rim and stroke his cock helped greatly.

"John" he breathed out, and it was a request. He could actually feel himself pulsing, needing, ready.

The doctor kissed his damp curls and slowly removed his fingers from inside him, not bothering to clean them as he applied more lube onto them and wrapped a hand around himself. He didn't need to stroke his cock any further or get himself any harder, but he wanted to make sure he'd be slick enough to enter his lover smoothly.

His other hand snaked over Sherlock's chest to interlace their fingers together, and with another loving kiss to his ear, his neck, his shoulder, he slowly rubbed himself against Sherlock's back, his cock nestling in between his cheeks but not moving to enter him just yet.

He let them slide together a few times, absolutely reveling in the feeling of the warm, sticky mess between his lover's thighs.

"John" and this time the request was bordering on a whine, bordering on a command.

"I know, I'm getting there" John told him playfully, but pressed a kiss to his shoulder and then finally, finally, held himself in his hand and lined them up with purpose.

He could feel Sherlock tense the slightest bit when he finally pressed himself against his entrance, and he stopped for a moment to stroke the detective's leg.

"Ok?" he asked, and the headful of curls nodded.

At the assent, he continued, but very, very, very slowly. It was nearly excruciating to do it like this, and John had no idea where he found the self-control for it, but he'd rather suffer than hurt his lover and undo months and months of progress.

Once he was fully in, he stopped, panting and focusing very hard on not coming right then and there. He was painfully hard and it felt unbelievably amazing to be inside Sherlock. It was hot and tight and slick and wonderful, but it was also, simply, Sherlock.

"Talk to me, love."

Sherlock was breathing heavily and staying very still, but he didn't seem terribly tense, which in turn put John at ease. "Just… don't move yet." The detective finally spoke, and his right hand came back to rest on his lover's thighs. John's hand immediately covered it with his own and he ran his thumb lovingly over the other's fingers.

They stayed like that for a good few seconds, connected and unmoving. It almost helped with taking the edge off a little bit so now John felt like he could actually last more than two minutes at this.

"Ok, just- go slow" Sherlock said after a whole minute had passed.

John nodded, even if his lover couldn't see it and then proceeded to pull out at a ridiculously slow pace.

"That's good"

Reassured, John started pushing back in just as slowly, and he could actually feel Sherlock relax around him. "You feel absolutely amazing, love" he whispered against Sherlock's skin, because he had never felt anything like this before. He'd never been inside another man, and it was tight like he couldn't believe it.

He moved a couple more times at almost the same speed, but it was hard to move so slowly when everything was so slick. Still, he did his best until Sherlock's fingers dug a bit more pointedly into his thigh and the man tilted his head slightly before moving his hips against him. It was a non-verbal command, but it was clearly understood.

Careful with his enthusiasm, John started moving quicker, and the detective was meeting his thrusts and setting his own pace.

Sherlock groaned and arched into John even more. For a moment, the doctor was afraid it had been a groan of pain but the detective was clutching onto him tighter. "Deep like that" he instructed.

Less afraid, John started to thrust in harder instead of faster, driving himself in all the way before pulling out.

"Yes" Sherlock half moaned, half gasped, curling his toes and arching even more. God, his nerves were lighting up like a bonfire inside him. "Faster, John" he tried to say, his voice coming out much lower and husky than his usual baritone.

After that, John stopped holding himself back. He allowed himself to fuck into his lover as fast as he could as hard as he could, egged on by the obscene squelching noises they were making and by Sherlock's punctuated moans of pleasure.

He also felt as his lover started to tremble in his arms, but he quickly realized Sherlock had let go of him to wrap his hand around his own cock and pump himself furiously in a rhythm to match John's own thrusts.

"John, I'm, I can't-" and then the younger man half groaned and half cried, quickly switching hands so he could stroke himself with his left and hold John's hips with his right. John let him do as he wished, and Sherlock essentially held him in place and fucked himself back onto him, rolling his hips so he could get extra friction to his prostate.

In a moan that came out as a huff of air, Sherlock constricted almost painfully around him and John could see as the man came all over his own hand. It was an insanely beautiful sight.

John actually slowed his thrusts down after that, wondering if he should just finish himself off instead of overstimulating his lover. But after a few seconds of not moving, Sherlock understood what he was doing.

"Keep going" the detective told him, his hand caressing John's thigh lethargically. "I want to feel it."

John twitched inside him at the request, and the thought of coming inside Sherlock made him start moving again almost immediately. He closed his eyes and let himself go, picking up speed and focusing entirely on the sensations.

He placed his hand behind Sherlock's knee and angled his leg up just a bit, allowing himself to reach even deeper. The accompanying gasp that came from his lover sounded very encouraging. He didn't last another couple strokes and then he was spilling himself deep inside his partner for the first time.

He moved a few more times, just milking himself till the last of it and then he dropped his head, completely exhausted, onto his lover's shoulder.

They didn't move and didn't say anything for a good few minutes. The post orgasmic haze left them both lethargic enough that they could actually sleep for the night. John hadn't made a move to pull out yet, and Sherlock enjoyed their intimate connection very much.

It wasn't until the detective rolled back, shifting so that they'd lie face to face, that they disconnected. They stared at each other for a bit, content smiles on their faces. The realization of what they had just conquered was just starting to set in for both of them.

"How are you feeling, love?" John asked, running a finger through Sherlock's curls, tucking a strand behind his ear.

The detective seemed pensive for a moment "It was… not what I had expected." He admitted finally.

"Oh?" John tensed, worried.

The detective shifted a bit and stole a quick kiss, bumping their noses in acknowledgement of his lover's apprehensive expression.

"It didn't hurt." He blurted out "I knew you would try to lessen the pain for me, but I just assumed that the act was inherently painful."

John's heart did a funny thing at hearing that. That Sherlock had thought such a thing and had still decided to trust John with himself- he couldn't put it into words. He kissed his younger lover and let the man go on.

"I did expect that I would enjoy the intimacy of it. And that I would enjoy knowing it was something that gave you pleasure" _Like a blowjob_ he thought "But- I hadn't expected it to actually… feel good? Physically? It feels good. It felt good- I really didn't think it would."

John nodded at that "Yeah, that was a surprise for me too." He admitted. "It feels like nothing else."

"Now I understand why you always want me to fuck you."

John laughed "I told you I wasn't trying to humor you."

They smiled quietly at each other for a while, both basking in their own satisfaction.

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm really glad we're getting married tomorrow."

John smiled openly at hearing it.

"Me too, love. Me too."

\--

The morning was positively hectic.

Sherlock woke up to John's hand around his cock, and a couple of minutes and very few words later, the doctor was straddling him on their bed and riding an orgasm out of both of them.

They were going to shower separately. John even started to – honest-to-god singing in the shower from the mood he was in – but Sherlock was quick to follow him into their bath. Wordlessly, the detective got in behind him, bit down on his earlobe and wrapped his hand around his soon-to-be-husband with a hunger he couldn't hold back.

It was handjobs in the shower, filthy kisses over breakfast, and time was closing in on them.

"We need to actually put our clothes on!" John admonished, but the severity of the statement was ruined by the following kisses he allowed Sherlock to place on his lips.

To be honest, he had never been this giddy in his entire life.

But off they went to put their wedding attire on. Sherlock helped John into his, buttoning him up, smoothing the countless layers down.

And then he stared at the finished product, blinked twice, and then proceeded to push John onto their bed and undo the entire work by opening his trousers and devouring him down like a man starving.

When he was done, he had the taste of his lover down his throat and a positively Cheshire cat grin on his face.

"I'm really glad you hadn't done your hair yet." John, flush-faced and panting, said, because his lover's curls were pointing out in all odd angles from his grip.

Needless to say, by the time Mycroft came to collect them, they were both barely done with getting ready.

The twin grins and flushed cheeks and slightly wrinkled shirts that greeted the elder Holmes made the man eye them both with distaste.

"If you're about done, we have a wedding to attend."

\--

And what a wedding it was.

In the end, Sherlock turned his obsessive self onto the task of wedding planning and _Everything has to be perfect, John!_

It was a not-so-small, beautiful ceremony, compromised of their friends, family and a bright spring day.

At John's behest, and Mummy's enthusiastic agreement, they got married in a church. At Sherlock's behest, and with absolutely no opposition, John got married in his army dress uniform.

The flowers were gorgeous, the food was delicious, and the cousins too many to name. John's sister was sober and present, and Mike Stamford – their bloody cupid – could make it. Even Amanda had showed up, as promised, and she seemed to strike it up really well with Molly.

They stood at that altar, flanked by a falsely disgruntled Mycroft and a beaming Lestrade. And they knew it was their vows, out of everything from that day, that would stay with them for years to come.

Sherlock had decided, after much deliberation, to forgo the white gloves he'd initially planned to wear at the wedding. There weren't many ways around it if he wanted John to slide a ring onto his finger. And the thought of hiding that ring, the one that bore John's name, under gloves until the end of time – he couldn't do it. So the gloves came off, never to be worn for hiding again.

And as he felt the warmth of John's fingers cradling his hands before their friends and family, as he looked down into those beautiful blue eyes, his uncertainties shrunk into nothingness.

"Sherlock," John started, smiling like a fool "You are… the most infuriating, brilliant, brave man that I have ever known. I am- I am honestly… astounded by your strength and your courage and your selflessness." He chuckled, because most people would probably never understand that last one. "And every day that you let me be by your side- I am so incredibly humbled by your trust in me. I was so alone before I met you and I- I owe you so much. I owe you everything. And I am so incredibly thankful to be standing here today and sharing the best day of my life with the love of my life."

The chorus of sniffles echoing in the church almost drew the attention away from Sherlock's own teary, reddened eyes. He was glad that, aside from John, really only Lestrade was seeing the state he was in.

He tried to hide his teary, enormous grin with a kiss, but John very pointedly stopped him.

"It's not that part yet!" he said, joking through sniffles. And the entire church laughed with him.

Acquiescing, Sherlock tried to right himself a bit and then cleared his throat. He drew in a deep breath, squeezed John's hands and let his love flow out of him without restraint.

"John, I am… a ridiculous man. I honestly question your sanity at times, to have chosen myself for a partner, but I find that I cannot complain." He smiled, his eyes crinkling "The things I have put you through, and all our ups and downs… How, even so, you found me deserving of your loyalty is something I cannot comprehend, but I am incredibly grateful for it. You are a soldier with the highest of morals, a doctor with the kindest of hearts, and to be loved by you is the single greatest honor I could dream myself receiving." He looked down for a moment, trying to blink away a tear that simply wouldn't go "I cannot say much of myself, but I can tell you this: you stand here today before the person who loves you most in all this world. I promise I will never let you down and I am privileged to have a lifetime ahead to prove it."

John wasn't even trying anymore. He was sniffling as much as those gathered around them, and this time it was him who almost jumped the gun straight into their kiss.

When came the rings, Sherlock actually thought he imagined Mycroft blinking rapidly with suspiciously reddened eyes. John's was slid into place smoothly, but Sherlock's not as much.

John had asked him, before, what he wanted to do with the rings. And despite knowing he couldn't feel his ring finger much, Sherlock was adamant about it. "At least the ring finger they chopped off wasn't the one we _actually_ need." he had joked and they had laughed about it for days.

Sure, when he raised his hand for John to slide the golden band onto it, his left ring finger refused to straighten like the other ones. But John simply uncurled it with the utmost care in the world and slid the wedding ring in place. The finger bent again after that, but Sherlock let his other ones relax as well, and suddenly it didn't seem out of place anymore. They both grinned at each other.

And then someone was saying something about… something or other; they'd stopped paying attention. They stared at each other like mesmerized children, and were only snapped out of their trance when they heard:

"…pronounce you married. You may kiss!"

And that, as they say, was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, you guys! Just sunshine and rainbows, and the happy ending that our babies deserved, but didn't get in the shit show of s4 (Yes, I'm bitter as fck).  
> Can we talk about how the *vast* majority of Sherlock's vows, and part of John's were taken straight from the actual series? Like. How was Johnlock not endgame I can't.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, and subscribe if you want to know when I post more stuff =)


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